Peaking in Kindergarten: Reclaiming Our Lost Creative Courage

You’re looking at the class photo. Kindergarten, 1995. Front row, second from left, that’s you – gap-toothed grin, mismatched socks visible under too-short pants, one hand raised as if you’re about to ask the most important question in the universe.

You remember that question now. “Why is the sky blue but water is clear if they’re both made of the same stuff?” Mrs. Henderson didn’t have an answer. You didn’t care. You had seventeen more questions lined up.

That kid in the photo believed everything was possible. Drew pictures of houses with purple smoke coming from chimneys because “regular smoke is boring.” Declared at show-and-tell that when they grew up, they’d be a dinosaur scientist who also sang songs about outer space. The class clapped. You bowed.

Now, thirty years later, you catch yourself apologizing before expressing an opinion. “I might be wrong, but…” “This is probably stupid, but…” “I don’t know if this makes sense, but…”

When did you learn to hedge every enthusiasm with doubt?

You watch your neighbor’s five-year-old chalk a masterpiece on the sidewalk – purple elephants flying through rainbow clouds. She steps back, hands on hips, surveying her work with the satisfaction of Michelangelo finishing the Sistine Chapel. No imposter syndrome. No second-guessing. Just pure, unfiltered belief in her own vision.

You remember being that certain. About everything. You knew which crayon made the perfect sunset (red-orange, not yellow-orange). You knew the best hiding spot in hide-and-seek. You knew exactly what you wanted for lunch, for Christmas, for your whole life.

Somewhere between kindergarten graduation and your first job interview, you learned that certainty was dangerous. That confidence could be mistaken for arrogance. That imagination was fine for children but adults needed to be “realistic.”

So you taught yourself to dim the volume on every impulse, every wild idea, every moment of pure joy. You learned to preface creativity with apologies, to wrap dreams in disclaimers.

The cruelest part isn’t just that you lost that fearless curiosity – it’s that you convinced yourself it was childish. You decided that growing up meant growing smaller. That maturity meant trading wonder for worry, possibility for probability.

But late at night, when you’re alone with your thoughts, you remember what it felt like to believe you could become anything. To know, with absolute certainty, that your ideas mattered. To create without concerning yourself with audience or approval.

That kindergarten kid wasn’t naive – they were wise in a way you’ve forgotten. They understood something you’ve spent decades unlearning: that enthusiasm is not embarrassing, that questions are more valuable than answers, that the distance between dreaming and doing is usually just the courage to begin.

You wonder if “peaking in kindergarten” isn’t about having reached your highest point at age five. Maybe it’s about recognizing that all your essential qualities – your creativity, your courage, your unfiltered joy – were already there. Not childish things to outgrow, but the foundation of who you truly are.

The real tragedy isn’t that you peaked in kindergarten. It’s that you’ve been apologizing for that peak ever since.

Standing in your kitchen, you look again at that photo. That kid with the gap-toothed grin and seventeen questions – they’re still in there. Waiting for you to remember that purple smoke from chimneys isn’t weird, it’s wonderful. That dinosaur scientist musicians aren’t impossible, they’re inevitable if you stop asking permission to dream.

Maybe it’s time to stop calling it your peak and start calling it your foundation.