Sunday Scribblings - 1/17/10

"The Good Old Days"

I often think back on my childhood with nostalgia, reflecting on how much easier things seemed back then.  No responsibilities, nothing to worry about.  No competition for anything.  Needs were taken care of by someone else.  Now, of course not all of these statements are completely valid, but when you're a kid you often don't notice the day-to-day struggle.  You're just busy being a kid.

One thing I wish I had again is the sense of timelessness.  What I mean by that is, as a child, you really don't see the quick passage of time.  A year seems like a very long time.  Even an hour seems like an eternity.  Time seems to stand still when you're a child.  You truly live in the moment.  I find it hard to do that as an adult when I see the days, weeks and months just fly by. 

There's something funny about time.  It makes you forget.  When I was in college, I'd think back to middle school and how much easier everything was back then, except I couldn't remember what it was like.  Was the work easy, or hard?  How much time did I have to spend on it?  How did it seem to me at the time?  These are the things you forget, because all you know is how you feel now.  It almost makes me wish I had written a journal, even a mundane one.  I could see what life was like for me back in that time and compare it to today.  But yesterday is mostly a memory.  I don't know how accurate the memory is, but it just is.