Youth

The stream meandered through the green that carpeted the forest floor. It trickled and sang a soothing song, it's gurgling tickling my ears and relaxing my soul. Birds twittered in the distance, their songs bouncing back and forth. The sounds and smells taking me back to the old days spent splashing in creeks and climbing trees. The days when freedom was being out of sight from your parents. Staying out until the first street lights came on and then screeching up the driveway on my bike. Young crushes the butterflies fluttering in hearts that are too young to realize that things will change. When the future was dinner time and the present was all that mattered. Home run derbies at the ball parks and laying in the grass as the stars rained down and smiles stretched for miles. Laying with that crush from 3rd period palms sweating and fear stifling your words. Happy to be in the same vicinity, happy to be alive. When possibilities for your life were endless, the things that you wanted to do were fantastical but seemingly possible. Before the weight of life, the baggage of reality, when we were super heroes and princesses, comic books and cartoons. The biggest concern was waking up on saturday to watch your shows. Allowance was a quarter a week but I still managed to buy action figures. Recess and dodgeball, four square and jungle gyms. Music class and P.E. These days seem so bright in the rearview mirror, the feelings so soothing. There was no work, there were few worries, the hurdles of life could be skipped over, barely lifting a leg you could hop over them. Now the hurdles have become walls, instead of a leap you have to chip away with a small chisel. The progress is slow and I wish I was on my bike, flying down the street the wind in my hair and a home cooked meal waiting for me. I wish I had summer vacation and Christmas break. Open house and arts and crafts. Assemblies and field trips. If only I could get back to that time, if only I could splash in that creek again, watch the clouds roll slowly across a light blue sky. Point to the shapes as the day begins to fade. When getting dirty was fun, running was not excercise but your normal pace. When you had time to fill with toys and play. I wish I could go outside and play, I used to complain to my mom that I was bored and she would tell me to go outside and play. I would moan and then be out there for hours, flooding ant hills and making damns and rivers from mud and the hose. There was a time when you wanted to get wet by sprinklers, where puddles were not avoided but celebrated. When you wouldn't think about the fact that wet clothes are uncomfortable, when a scuff in your shoes didn't even deserve a response. Leaf piles seemed to scream "Jump in me" and hills evoked joy because once you got to the top you could roll all the way down. There is a lack of self awareness in youth, the norms of society are just beginning to form, the restrictions of responsibility and the paranoid adherence to what other people think are just begining to crawl out from the back of your mind. I miss spiderman underwear and pajamas with covered feet. Popsicles and the joy of hearing that ice cream truck, the very first tingle of the song a signal to run inside beg for money and the race down the street barefoot. The asphault burning but the chase for that ice cream well worth the penance. Now I think more about sirens than I do about ice cream trucks, I think more about cleanliness than fun. It's a natural progression but I wish i could find a way to get back that youth, those carefree days, uncharted and uninhibited. Where the rewards would be desert instead of a drink, when holding hands meant so much more. If I could shake off these layers of jade, this dust of age, wipe my eyes clear of this fog that makes everything seem so bland. I wish hills were fun and the leaf piles would talk to me again. I want to be able to throw my umbrella way and look straight at the rain falling on my face, just before I jump into the middle of a puddle. (Not really though wet clothes are uncomfortable)