when we were children

When we were children...

All was right with the world. There was nothing the grown-ups couldn't fix. We were well-fed, clothed, and, by and large, content. Hell, we didn't have a care in the world! Everything was taken care of. It was all under control.

That was a long time ago...

Times change. People grow up, some grow together, most grow apart. people die. People die, and they're gone forever. Now we are grown, and now the responsibility, all the weight of the world, rests with us. Now we are the grown-ups.

When we were children, were we happier?

Should we have been?

"When you see my Camaro, what do you think of it?" Mike was ironing his sheets when I came over, after a week of not returning my phone calls. Even though his friendship had mutated into a crush on his part, I wanted answers before I wrote the whole thing off.

"Personally, I think it's a laughingstock. It's a waste of money." I stood beside the fireplace because I refused to sit. I refused a glass of wine. I didn't come here to be comfortable.

"I have that car because inside, there's a little kid that refuses to grow up, and I like that about myself." Yeah, I thought, a little kid that quotes the cost of good wine and boasts being on the inside track of the high brow restaurant scene in New Orleans, a little kid who has never known what I knew as a kid. This was not the first time we were in ugly disagreement.

There were a few times when I enjoyed that car's ability to be a little kid at heart. We drove across the Causeway with the T-Tops off and felt the cool front rolling in off the Lake. Mike always liked to rev and speed and take the turns quickly. He was like that in his life sometimes, like that with me.

He was a kid to me in the ways of dealing with people, a spoiled brat who wouldn't admit that he was ever at any disadvantage, a rich kid, the kind I would have hated as a child.

It made me glad to not be a kid anymore.

We...
walked through fields, parting the grass up to our shoulders.
played games that did not make sense.
ran in circles and threw things at each other.
got jobs, annoyed when people asked about them.
rode bikes into the dark night.
explored tunnels below and trees above.
stayed up late telling secrets.