‘Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful’ – Kailash Satyarthi
I miss a lot of things in life, certain people, my smooth forehead, my 24 inch waist. One thing I often think about though, is how much I miss being a child. The ironic thing is, as the saying goes, when I was a child, all I wanted to do was be a grown up. So I kind of miss something in hindsight.
Childhood Helen – before I had to start adulting
I had a very idyllic childhood, my dad was in the army and I spent the majority of my youth in Holland and Belgium, on a safe, secure army base where there are loads of kids your age, you get 10 weeks off in the summer because of continental school holidays, there’s always some social event going on because of all the nationalities around (4th of July was a particular favourite of mine!) and the weather was pretty damn good.
I always think of being 8 years old as a good age. You’re a pretty much fully functioning human being by then, you have a personality, you can talk in coherent sentences and you have some idea of what you like and what you don’t like in life. School is pretty much still colouring in and sticking sand or glitter onto paper and you don’t really have any home work (unless it’s something that takes 5 minutes like spellings – and you get a week to learn them). Life’s pretty sweet as an 8 year old. My mum always jokes about how when I was 8, I had this little fold up desk that had a note pad and a telephone attached, so I could play secretaries, now I’ve grown up I get to play secretaries for real. Problem is at my current work they tend to frown upon me sitting writing out Bananarama lyrics and drinking Kia Ora all day.
My Dad said to me recently when I was bellyaching about getting old that i’m as young now as i’ll ever be so may as well enjoy it and he’s right, I’ll always miss being young and the amount of non responsibility stuff you can get away with but hopefully not so much that I forget to enjoy the present and most importantly – alcohol. Which let’s be honest makes me act like i’m 8 again anyway so, you know, win win!