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There are many things that I love about being an adult. It allows me the freedoms that we all crave. Freedom to do what we want when we want is amazing. Freedom isn't free though. Everyone knows that. The price of adult freedom is very high. It is then that we must take on real life responsibility for ourselves. We begin to raise families and have troubles of our own. Worry takes over our lives and that is when we know that childhood wasn't so bad after all.

There are times that I will look back at childhood and realize just how much I miss it. The carefree summer months that involved nothing more than child's play. Chasing the ice-cream truck down was an everyday occurrence in our neighborhood. Riding our bikes up and down the same path seemed different everyday, depending on who and what you were pretending to be.

Back then, I didn't know that we were poor. We had very little but it worked well. We used our imaginations on a daily basis. Laying on the ground with friends to play the game of cloud guessing was so much fun. "It's a monkey" says one child. The other child says "No it's not, it's a giraffe." What I wouldn't give at this moment to be laying in the hot July sun saying those words today.

Those days seem to have flown by even though at the time it seemed to move slower than molasses in the winter time. We couldn't wait to grow up and be out on our own. Living under our parents rules could be a little burdensome. Little did we know what real burdens lay ahead of us.

Sitting in front of a pile of bills wondering if I am going to be able to meet them isn't the dream life that I thought was going to happen when I grew up. When I was a child, I simply had to hop in the car and go wherever we were going. Now I have to pay for the gas. The old way worked just fine. Isn't there a way to leave it like that forever?

Swinging off the rope at the old swimming hole and hoping that we didn't land on the bank was the biggest worry back then. That squishy bottomed creek is calling our names a this very moment. The sounds of laughter and childish pranks can be heard if you listen closely enough. Heartaches weren't yet known. Our lives were relatively untouched by the pain that we inevitably feel as we grow older.

The only thing a person has to do to go back in time is to close his/her eyes and drift backwards for a little while. It is sometimes painful because we have lost some of those people that spent those days with us. It is sweet as well. Closing my eyes at this moment brings the sweet smell of honeysuckle to my nostrils. The warmth surrounds me as though I was there at this very moment. Yes, when I look back on childhood, there are many things that I miss about it. What was will never be again, but I am sure glad that I got the chance to live it.

Learn more about this author, Dawn Hawkins.
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