Childhood Dreams

Can we go back, back to when life was simple, easy and care free. Back to a time when the most we had to worry about was if we wanted to paint or colour, wear red or blue, pink or purple. Back to when the world seemed so magical and big and we could not wait to become grown ups, what fun we would have when we grew up.

We spent playtimes and break times discussing what we wanted to be and do when we grew up with our classmates. Some wanted to be parents and have babies and would push around a dolly in free time to show us how much of a great parent they would be, some wanted to sing and perform and would stand on the stairs of the playground and sing songs for us to show how great and talented they were. Others drew rockets and planets with dreams of going to space.

We spent hours playing hop scotch, tag, stuck in the mud and skipping, the hours flew by as we ran around, giggling and happy. When someone fell over, we picked them up and gave them a hug. Everything was so simple and clear.

We all had dreams and pictures in our minds of how great being an adult would become. Houses we would live in, places we would travel, things we would do. To think there was a time when we wished away our care free years, counting our age upwards daily so we could reach what we thought was a magical place, called adulthood.

Adults seemed so happy, so together, so content and so "adultish" it was the one thing we all couldn't wait to be. I guess when you are young you don't see the reality of what is really there and what is really going on.

We grow up, we become jaded and sometimes disillusioned by becoming a adult, things stop being straight forward and we lose that fun and magic we had years before. We sometimes give up on our dreams and our aspirations because, well life.

Things crop up, friendships change, people move away and move on. Over night we seem to acquire a wide range of responsibilities that childhood did not fully prepare us for. So we struggle very much to adjust and to be the adult we pictured in our minds in the playground all those years before.

Oh to be a child again, smiling, running, playing, singing, dancing being yourself without fear of judgement, can we go back to where we clapped for our friend when they learnt a new skill or did a cartwheel in the playground, back to where you were excited when your friend got a new top on non uniform day. Can we go back to long walks and queuing up for an ice cream in the summer, water fights and riding bikes. Long days and long warm summer nights, sitting on the wall while scuffing the back of your new trainers; those were happy times, those were the best of times.

Nostalgia, memories, the past; whatever you choose to call it, I am sure we would love to revisit that time in our lives. When you grow up, you realise the magic was actually in childhood, and all those days you spent wishing you were an adult was time you should have enjoyed being young. We can't go back or undo stages in our lives and we can't predict the future, all we can do is live and embrace our journey and hold on to little parts of our childhood that gives us the happiest memories...