Have you seen this “forward” about one man’s muse about returning to the age of six years old because he feels that life was much simpler? Funny. I don’t remember being six quite as carefree as this author does though on the surface it would appear to be so.
I remember that–
When I was six, I had to go to bed earlier than most of my friends because my mom thought I needed more sleep and I felt like a “baby.” If I was naughty on a Sunday, my punishment might just be not watching Lassie at 7:00 p.m. and nothing was worse than missing Lassie. When I was six, my first-grade teacher did not like me one bit, plus she thought I talked too much in class. While I stood talking to my little friend one day, my back turned to her, she had the audacity to pick me up and carry me back to my seat. Everybody laughed. I was humiliated.
When I was six, I forever was losing my dimes and nickels and that could buy a lot of “penny candy.” I hated church at six years old. The mass was in Latin, and I thought the nuns smelled funny. My brother put a worm in my hair when I was six years old and I screamed and was terrified to take it out. When I was six, I had short curly hair and when I rode my bike down the street sometimes I’d hear, “Is that a boy or a girl?” That stung.
When I was six, I couldn’t do some of the things my older brother got to do. And no matter how many times my mother explained it was because he was older and I’d have my chance when I got a little older, I didn’t like it and it didn’t seem fair.
Now I have happy memories of being six as well. I just don’t remember that age being as carefree as this writer does. I don’t believe there is any age that is carefree on Planet Earth. Days of fun perhaps, even seasons that may be of relatively little stress, but not carefree.
As I’ve gotten older, some trials seem to be “heavier” than they were when I was a child. Although, not receiving that shiny gold star on my homework at the time probably hurt just as much as not getting a promotion now. I’m better equipped to deal with the crises of life now. I have the benefit of a wisdom that comes with age plus I have the Holy Spirit living inside me, guiding me each day.
We mere mortals have an uncanny capacity for selective memory. We often remember things worse than they were or better than they were, but seldom as they really are. Try as we might not to, we all have our lens from which we view life. Only God Himself, I believe, can correct any distortion in my perspective.
No, I don’t want to be six again, nor any other age for that matter. Sure, I’ve experienced a few days so sweet, so fun, so pregnant with the best this world has to offer, I wouldn’t mind living them again. But life doesn’t work that way.
Reminiscing is great. I do it all the time. I love to look back and remember wonderful times I’ve experienced as a child or even as adult. Or look back at the particularly difficult times and see how God worked in the midst of them. Y’all know that “remember” is one of my favorite words in the English language. Nevertheless, when I do remember, I’m asking God more and more to give me His perspective as I evaluate my past and my present. I want to see things for what they are and not what I wish they were or fear them to be.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. (Ecclesiastes 7:10)