To Be Young

Sometimes I forget what it was like to be a kid. I forget the hours I spent playing Lego's with my brother, and Playmobil with my best friend. I forget how often I would go swing in our backyard. And all the times I played make believe with our plastic dishes and the berries that were on our trees. I forget about the elaborate camping ground I built for my little plastic people, and how I loved to create houses, and rooms full of detail for any of my little people. My dad built me a huge bookshelf/dollhouse. The idea was it was like a bookshelf, with different "floors" and on each floor were different numbers of rooms, and in each room I created a living space for my toys. But before that, before it got all fancy, I would make entire houses out of books. I would use books to represent a room. Or sometimes, I would even lay two books together to create one big room. I would make a whole floor plan, and from there add furniture and little people and make a story. Or I would use the flat building board for our Lego's, and I would build walls and furniture for my little Lego people. I loved to create and organize. A characteristic that I still have. I love organizing things as efficiently as possible. Making as many rooms on that Lego board as possible. Or fitting as much furniture on a book as possible. I read a lot. From this world of stories I would create my own. I would make stories for my dolls. And for weeks I would try to leave my book house up, or to keep my Lego house the same. But after a while it would have to be picked up, or a new way of organizing the rooms or furniture would come to me, and I would start all over again. I think my favorite part was the building of the house, once that was done, I would play a little longer, but it wasn't as fun. Often, I would create a house, make it beautiful, name my people, come up with a story, then wreck it all and move on to a new thought.

I wish I could go back. I wish I could pull out those play things, and find those specific gray books that were all about the same thickness and worked so well as a floor plan. I wish I could find all that beautiful furniture and create rooms and stories once again. But I'm almost eighteen. And such childish things must be put behind me, and sometime, maybe, when no ones looking I'll go look at all those old play things. But for now I have to pretend. Pretend that I don't long for those days. That I don't wish to be young forever.