Day #9 What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time of your life...)

This is probably one of the easiest things to talk about. Basically,  I miss a time in my life. I miss being a kid. This has become extremely apparent  to me now that i am a senior in high school. I find myself thinking--ALL THE TIME--"Man, I remember the good old days." I'll be sitting in Math class thinking, "I wish I was in second grade math learning how to multiply numbers instead of being here learning how to find the exact values of trigonomic functions." Or I'll be in English class thinking,  "I wish I was in second grade reading 10 page picture books instead of reading 600 page books like Jane Eyre or 13 page essays followed by an intense analysis." I miss the excitement of going to school, the excitement of going to recess, the excitement of going to lunch, the excitement of life. Everything, for me at least, was literally an adventure. Recess was a time where I didn't have to even be present in this reality. I could go off and pretend to be whatever i wanted, go wherever i wanted, all in my own imagination. Playground equipment wasn't just playground equipment. The playground was a jungle! It was a spaceship! It was a different country! It was neverland! It was WHATEVER i wanted it to be! And my friends weren't my friends. They were horses! Or fairies! Or space men! Or aliens! Or creatures made up in our own minds! We could be whatever we wanted to be. Our imaginations were our lives. Not that i'm saying that I don't have an imagination now--i DO--but it's not the same. It's second rate, really, it seems. And don't even get me started on the work load or the stress. The most stress I got out of school was the stress that came from wondering if i was going to like what was for lunch that day! And the work load was either non-existant, or included one worksheet and maybe a story to take home to read! Today my stress is through the roof. Tests, Quizzes,  hours  of homework each night, jobs, college,plays, musicals, clubs, relationships--EVERYTHING. It's just plain insanity. When my stress is almost too much, I let my mind wander to when I was a kid, when everything was great. Didn't have to worry about a single thing. There was always someone there to help me. No work. Life was just a whole lot of fun. But the reason why being a child is so EASY and relaxing is  because, as a child, you don't have independence. You have to listen to others. You don't choose things for yourself. When you grow up, everything changes. You have to make decisions for yourself, and that's really stressful. Also, as you gain knowledge, you are expected to demonstrate that knowledge. Work get's harder. You graduate from coloring pictures, to learning your alphabet, to reading a sentence, to reading a paragraph, to reading a short book, to reading a longer book, to reading a REALLY long book in which you also have to analyze and develop an educated opinion on it too. Everything just gets gradually harder as your mind gets sharper. There are drawbacks to everything, but there are also great things that come out of them. I loved being a kid. But the thing is, isn't a kid's number one goal to get older? To grow up and make decisions for themselves? To be independent? Yes! I think a person just has to enjoy each separate time in their lives. I honestly don't think i'll ever stop lusting after the blissfull innocence of childhood, but I can  also honestly say that being older is  great  too. I can drive and take myself places. I can read--LOTS OF THINGS. I can do hard calculations. I can think critically and come up with complex ideas. I can make more choices for myself. Both times had pros and cons. You just have to enjoy them as they come.