Oh, to be a child again. When Betsy announced that she and her sponsors would be hosting a link-up based around the question of how we would spend our day if we were six years old again, my imagination started to run wild. Would I be a six year-old with the knowledge and experience of my twenty-seven years? Would I be transported back in time? My thoughts started to tumble over one another, and I quickly realized that this question was more complex than I first realized.
But that doesn't seem right, does it? Being six isn't about over-thinking questions, and it's certainly not about planning multiple scenarios to a benign situation. That tendency is one I've cultivated through adulthood, and it doesn't fit into my imaginary escape to childhood.
No, being six is all about running around outdoors through the dandelions, trying not to step on bees. It's about tromping through the garden, marveling at how the vegetables grow above my head. It's about crawling up into the hammock and being a little afraid of rocking too hard and flipping over onto the ground. It's about stumbling over a rock and getting dirt on my knees, then laughing and getting back up to run over to the swingset.
Being six is all about hugging my stuffed animals as tight as possible before lining them up on my bed to teach them a lesson from school. It's about skipping through the house and talking to myself without self-consciousness, completely wrapped up in my imaginary world of play. It's about trying to dress up the cat in baby clothes and put him in the wicker doll carriage in my bedroom. It's about sitting underneath the piano, singing songs, and being tucked away from the grown-ups.
Being six is about being my mom's shadow, never more than a footstep away. It's about gazing up at my dad as he plays the guitar and squealing for him to sing some more. It's about bouncing into my sister's room when her friends are over and smiling up at them expectantly as they play with my unruly hair. It's about curling into my grandmother's lap and being swung around by my uncles at weekend BBQs. It's about being so excited to jump from the tree stump in front of my grandfather's house.
Being six is about being six. It's about living in the present moment, taking a break to disappear into daydream worlds, and then coming back to eat chicken nuggets. It's about hearing grown-ups talk about being adults and telling my mom that I don't want to ever go to college, that I want to live at home forever. It's about coloring, dancing, wondering, napping, loving, laughing, and being. It's about being six forever and letting the days melt into each other until they all become one wavy line of being six. I will be six today and the day after and the day before, and so on. I will be six forever and always and never and maybe. Seven is so very far away.
