I want to be young again. I want to go to McDonalds and think it's the best place to eat. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make waves with rocks. I want to think M&M's are better than money because you can eat them. I want to play kickball during recess and stay up Christmas Eve waiting to hear Santa or Rudolph on the roof. I long for the days when life was simple. When all you knew were your colors, the addition tables, and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother you because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. I want to go to school and have snack time, recess, gym, and field trips. I want to be happy, because I don't know what should make me upset. I want to think the world is fair and everyone in it is great. I want to believe anything is possible. Sometime while I was maturing I learned too much. I learned of nuclear weapons, starving children, battered wives, death, obesity, unhappy marriages, and abused children. I learned of the unhappiness that exists and like my addition tables, I never forgot it. I want to be six and think that everyone I know including myself will live forever because I don't know the concept of death. 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, not something I use for an escape from the things I should be doing. I want to think answering the phone is a privilege not a pain in the neck, and that the bus rides are fun regardless of where I am going, not an inconvenience because I could have driven there faster by car. I want to live not knowing the little things I find exciting will not always make me happy as when I first learned them. I remember not seeing the world as a whole but rather being aware of things which directly concern me. I want to be looking at the picture of life so closely that I can only see the people directly around me--family and friends--as the people who concern me, unaware of the power of government and the possibility I have of being insignificant. I want to be naive enough to think that if I am happy so is everyone else. Because by being aware you take on responsibility, the responsibility to act or to know you didn't and live with the consequences. I want to walk down the beach and think only of the sand under my bare feet and the possibility of finding that blue piece of seaglass that I am looking for. I long for the days when while I walked down the beach it was the only thing I thought of. But those days are gone. I am destined now to walk the beach always thinking other thoughts, worrying other worries, reliving memories good and bad that the beach reminds me of, enjoying the view and air but never completely removing myself from the thinking, worrying, and rethinking that is always going on inside of me. I want to be six again, happy to be alive yet unaware of what life really is, for that matter unaware of what happiness really is. I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees and riding my bike, letting the grown ups worry about time, the dentist, and how to find the money to fix the car's battery. I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up, not to worry about what I'm going to do after graduation. It's not that I want to live my life over again, I'm basically happy with how things turned out--so far. Rather I want to be able to escape but not have to pay for it later. I want to be able to visit my six year old state of mind, play in my six year old state of mind dirt and swim in my six year old state of mind water. Life was good then but I didn't know enough to realize it. I was so anxious to grow up I spent time, I should have enjoyed being young, acting older. I want that time back. I want to use it now as an escape so that when I have a computer program, six reading assignments, two depressed friends, and second thoughts about my major I can travel back and build a snowman without thinking about anthing except why the snow sticks together and what I could possibly use for the snowman's mouth. I want to be able to be young…