Sweet Childhood, Sweet Bliss

When I was growing up, my parents had a lot of very maddening rules – practically no TV, no boys, no parties, no learning how to drive, no going out without a chaperone (yes, that’s what I said) and some others I can’t quite remember. The stress involved in trying to evade all these rules was so much; I decided to turn my attention to reading and writing instead. I read a lot of the time but mostly I just wrote. The writing came quite easily without much effort as the only company I had was my thoughts and myself. Sometimes I couldn’t even get the thoughts down on paper fast enough before they disappeared.

Just before I was due to begin university, I met someone who was graduating the same year and I complained to him about my parents’ psychotic rules. He listened to me rant for an hour and then finally he gave me only one reply, “Enjoy it. I promise you in a few years time, you will realise these are the best years of your life.” I, of course, thought he was positively rabid and dismissed his responses. Adults just have no idea what it feels like to be a teenager with crazy parents.

Quite a few years have gone by since then and I am now old enough to live by my own rules. I have had to become responsible for myself. I have work, rent, car payments, grocery bills, water and electricity payments, facebook and personal relationships to mention a few all going on inside my head now. They all fight for equal attention. I have to wade through all this claptrap to get to my writing thoughts and sometimes by the time I get to them, I’m so tired I can’t get them out on paper. Add the worries of the current recession, getting laid off and running out of money, nowadays I’m lucky to locate any thoughts at all. I could stare at a blank sheet for an hour at a time before anything agrees to show itself.

Sometimes in-between those blank pages, my mind takes a trip down memory lane and I remember what that man told me all those years ago and then I smile at how self-righteous I'd been. Back then I could stay in bed if I wanted to, I didn’t have to pay any bills, I couldn’t care less if there was a recession in the world and if I did, I certainly wasn’t going to get laid off by my parents. Without a shadow of a doubt, I realise now that he had been right. My childhood was the best years of my life and since a time machine hasn’t been invented yet, I doubt I’m going to get them back but at least I have the memories. And if nothing else, I got these thoughts out of my head today.