I Want to Be a Child Again

Do you remember summer when you were a child, and time seemed limitless? Each morning was an opportunity to complete a checklist a mile long of fun and adventure. Sometimes, that adventure turned into reading a stack of books you just borrowed from the library.

That’s exactly the kind of adventure I desire at this time in my life – I want to revert back to a world in which I had the luxury to lounge around reading all day and let the to-do list slide. When you haven’t reached the old age of eighteen yet, it’s easy to tell yourself you can finish your mental list later. I’m sure I wasn’t the only child who made lists. Lists were just as reassuring then as they are now.

• Construct a theme park with cardboard, tape and brads
• Write the first chapter of fairy book
• Organize detective agency files with hand-drawn images of the neighbors
• search for clues in the mysterious world of the garage
• Search the streets for pop cans that you can exchange for money
• Ride bike to store, exchange pop cans, buy candy cigarettes so you can be a detective who smokes
• Read the new informational book on the lyfe of pyrates
• Read your favorite Phyllis A Whitney book for the 100th time

The rest you would get around to eventually.

When you visited yout grandparents in Palm Desert, lists were often turned into pages of doodles during the day because it was too hot to go outside, like 120-degree hot, where the heat hits you like a brick wall. Sometimes, you would hit the jackpot and somebody would drive you and your sister and cousins into town to go swimming or to the air-conditioned mall…where you would buy magazines and books.

And consequently, you spent the rest of your days reading inside the coolness of the cinder block house or fighting with your cousins because they cheated at the board games. That cinder block house was tiny, too small to house a crowd of restless children.

At night, wandering around the desert became the real adventure. The indigo blue sky was filled with stars because you were just far enough outside the city. The desert became its own city, with villages created in stones.

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No, I don’t really want to be a child again, except for the luxury of reading all day instead of wondering how to market my books and how I’m going to finish the next one while juggling everything else.

I’d also love to see my grandparents again. My grandma loved to have fun. That was one of her main drives in the world. Sure, she worked hard on do-it-yourself projects until she died, but she made time for fun.

Maybe childhood isn’t the amswer. Maybe it’s a personality adjustment that’s needed.