To Whom It May Concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult in order to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old...
 
The tax base is lower, so I want to be six again.  I want to go to Porky Pig's diner in Spartanburg after church and think it's the best place in the world to eat.  I want to eat a chili-cheese dog really well done (heck, I like my hot-dogs almost burnt anyhow) without wondering how many grams of fat, nitrates, sodium or cancer-causing carcinogens are in it.  I want to walk across a frozen puddle and feel it crunch beneath my saddle shoes.  I want to dig clay out of the banks of the creek and catch crawdads and catfish; I want to swim naked and be totally oblivious to my state of undress.  I want to tie a string to the leg of a "June Bug" and watch that little sucker fly in circles.  I want to be amazed at fireflies in a Mason jar and believe that the stories that my uncles told me were absolute gospel...(YES, the Green-Eyed Monster is married to the Boogie Man and if you aren't a good girl they will get you.)

I want my Mom to comfort me when I have a nightmare about being "GOT."  I want to think M & M's are better than money, 'cause you can eat 'em!  I want my Mom, aunts, uncles, grandmother, siblings and cousins to be strong, happy, healthy and youthful...
 
I want to walk to the school bus along a red dirt road in South Carolina and play hopscotch with my friends at recess.  I want to go with my family and cut down a Christmas tree on our own land, and pull it home through the snow on a sled and see the warm lights of our house in the distance and feel the comfort of knowing that a cozy fire and a cup of hot chocolate with a peppermint stick would be waiting.  I want to make ornaments & paper chains & strings of popcorn, cranberries & gumdrops.  I want to stay up late on Christmas Eve waiting to hear Santa & Rudolph on the roof.  And I want to think that a new box of crayons, paper dolls, and a Betsy Wetsy doll were the best things that could ever be invented.  And I want to marvel at Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio (although my cousin Tim said that NOTHING like that would ever happen)...
 
I want to hear my Grandmother's sweet clear voice sing "Rock of Ages" & "Amazing Grace" & "Nearer My God to Thee," and "find" the sugar cookies that she always "hid" on the bottom shelf of the pantry.  I want my Aunt Agnes to tell me stories and hear her say, "Wake-up, my little morning glory."  Back then all I needed to feel safe and loved was when someone warmed a blanket by the fire and bundled me up in it on cold winter nights...

I want to make a tent with my sisters on the porch out of a blanket draped over four chairs and listen to the warm rain and smell the earth when it was fresh and pure and sweet and "global warming," "pollution" & "endangered species" were not front-page issues...

I want to spin in circles with my sisters and cousins 'till we can no longer stand up, then lay in the cool grass and see shapes in the clouds.  I want to listen to the gentle winds whispering through the Carolina pines.  I want to play "Hide & Go Seek," "Kick the Can," "Mother May I," "Tag" & "Red Rover."

I want to ride on the side step of my Uncle Melvin's big black car while I hold on to the door (so what if he was only going 5 mph...I was FLYIN.')
 
I want a banana & peanut butter sandwich on squishy white bread...and a 50-50 bar...and I want to dump a bag of salted peanuts into an amber-colored bottle of Orange Crush without caring that someone might think I was being "weird."
 
I long for the days when life was simple.  When I thought "Fun with Dick & Jane" was a literary masterpiece...and not a porno flick.
 
When I knew all my colors, the addition tables and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother me because I didn't know what I didn't know...and I didn't care.  When summer meant digging peanuts on my uncle's farm...and the way watermelon tasted when warm from the field....or peach ice cream from a hand-cranked ice cream maker on a sweltering southern night.  Summer was the smell of the honeysuckle, lilacs, dogwood and wild roses that grew wild near my country home.

I want to go to Macedonia Grammar School, a two-room school house where roughly half the students are related to me.  And have recess, music time, snack time and all the good things that come with being in the first grade. I want to be happy because I didn't know what was supposed to make me upset.  I want to think that the world is fair, and everyone in it is honest and good.  I want to believe that all things are possible...and that things really do happen if I wish on the first star, or blew out all my candles or blew the fluff from a dandelion.  Before I learned that the light from a star was made a hundred million kazillion years ago and that it may have burned out long ago (and that it twinkles because of pollution), and that wishes on candles mean ZIP, and blowing on a dandelion only causes weeds to grow.
 
I want to think that the only boy in the world that I will ever love is Curtis Cobb (who gave me my first kiss) because he loved me, and would forever...he told me so...and it must be true, right?  *SIGH*  Was love ever really that simple?

Sometime while I was maturing, I learned too much.  I learned of nuclear weapons and wars and loved ones going away to war & not returning...and the ones that did return were changed forever.  I learned of a world where men left their families to go and fight for our country, and returned only to end up living on the street...begging for their next meal.

I learned of a world where children learned how to kill....and did!

I learned about asteroids that may or may not be on a collision course with Earth.  I learned about prejudice, starving and abused children, lies, unhappy marriages filled with violence and infidelity.  Illnesses such as AIDS, E-boli, flesh-eating bacteria and cancer.  I learned about pain and mortality...and I want to be six again...I want to think that everyone including myself will live forever because I don't understand the concept of death...I want simplicity and purity, when we thought that the worst thing in the world was when someone took away your jump rope or being picked last for kickball.
 
I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life, and be overly excited by the little things again.  I want television to be something I watch for fun (Like Rahmar Of The Jungle, Queen For A Day & The Lone Ranger), not something I use for escape from 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 discovered them.  The county fair, cotton candy, red candy apples...mmmmmm, I can smell them now.  I want to go to the movies on a Saturday night with two quarters, pay for the movie, buy a bag of penny candy, a hot dog, popcorn and a soda and still have a nickel left over...I want Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Gene Autry, John Wayne and Audie Murphy...I want a hero that will never be involved in a "sex scandal," and a princess that really does live "happily ever after"...I want to be six again.
 
I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather being aware of things that directly concerned me.  I want to be naive enough to think that if I'm happy, so is everyone else.  I want to walk along the edge of Rainbow Lake and think only of the grass under my feet, and the possibility of finding the mermaid I'm looking for.
 
I want to spend my afternoons climbing chinaberry trees and riding my blue bike feeling the warm wind on my face, letting the grownups worry about time, the dentist, how to survive more days than there is money in the bank, and how to find the strength to get through another day.  I want to believe in the power of hugs, smiles, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination...and mankind!

I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up, and what I'll be, and 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 work, or two depressed friends, or my kids' and grandkids' lives are not going well or I've had an awful fight with my "significant other," or bittersweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things, I can travel back, and build a snowman with my older sisters Elaine & Sandra without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together, and what we can possibly use for the snowman's mouth.

I want to go back to that simpler life...

I want to be six again.

Ruth Carter-Bourdon
Copyright © by Ruth Carter-Bourdon.
Used by permission.

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