I want to be six again. I want to go to local ice cream parlour and think it's the best place in the world to eat. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make waves with rocks. I want to think Smarties are better than money 'cause you can eat them. I want to play football during play time and stay up on Christmas Eve waiting to hear Santa and Rudolph on the roof. I long for the days when life was simple. When all you knew were your colours, the times tables and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother you because you didn't know what you didn't know, and you didn't care.
I want to go to infant school and have milk time, play time, nap time, and home time. I want to be happy because I don't know what should make me upset. I want to think the world is fair, and everyone in it is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. Sometime, while I was getting older, I learned too much. I learned of nuclear weapons, prejudice, starving and abused kids, lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and mortality.
I want to be six again. I want to think that everyone, including myself, will live forever because I didn't have a concept of death. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life, and be overly excited by the little things again. I want TV to be something I watch for fun, not something I use for escape from the things I should be doing. I want to live knowing the little things I find exciting will always make me as happy as when I first learned them.....I want to be six again.
I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather being aware of only the things that directly concerned me. Seaham was my world, Sunderland and Newcastle were foreign countries. I want to be naive enough to think that if I'm happy, so is everyone else. I want to go down to the beach and think only of the sand beneath my feet, the crabs and whelks in the rock pools and the possibility of finding that blue piece of sea glass I'm looking for. I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees and picking blackberries, being picked up by the police on my way to Sunderland on my little three wheeler, letting the grown ups worry about time, the dentist, and how to find the money to fix the old car.
I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up, and what I'll be, who I'll be, and not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out. I want that time back. I want to use it now as an escape, so that when my computer crashes, or I have a mountain of bills, a few depressed friends, or a fight with my partner, or bitter sweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things, I can travel back, and build a snowman, without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together, and what I can possibly use for the snowman's mouth.
I want to be six again, especially now, as Christmas approaches. I want to expect nothing except presents and goodies. No terrorism, no fears, no worries. Expecting only that Santa coming 'cause I've been good (and somehow, mysteriously, even if I've not been all that good?). No unemployment or job worries, no taking care of ailing, elderly parents, no homeless in the streets. No aching joints or blurred vision, just the joy of Christmas and meeting with all my friends to share what we have.
I want to be six again.
The best psychological health comes from admitting your faults and recognizing they're caused by someone else.
Wizzzard xxx
