Lately I've heard a lot of people saying they wish they could go back to being a child, because they didn't worry about anything and they were carefree and loved everything and the sunlight was always golden and the camera focus hazy....

Okay, maybe not that last bit, but, you get the point. I think there's this great myth out there that if your adulthood is tense, it's okay to remember your childhood as this time of bucolic bliss where you and the other neighborhood kids all played tag together and everyone love everyone else.

To this I say: Fuck it. That's not true.

Kids are mean to each other just like adults. And you were more than likely just a smaller, stupider version of yourself. 

I get it: being an adult can sucks ass. Yes, it would be nice to go back to being a kid, but really, only so I don't have to pay my freaking cable bill. If, say, a do-over presented it self, yeah, I'd go back to being a kid, provided I could somehow be the inventor of Toaster Strudel when I caught up to my 33-year-old self.

But other than that? Not so much.

Being a kid can be absolutely awful. I was anxious about the strangest things all the time. I was constantly worried when my family went somewhere that we were going the wrong direction. I would have panic attacks. I don't know why. I could probably invent a reason that has something to do with a TV movie my mom let me watch about a woman who fell asleep on a flight and ended up with no luggage in the Middle East, but that's literally all I remember about that particular movie, and also, it would be a total lie. I was just convinced we were headed the wrong way and we were all going to die in a ditch.

And that is just the beginning. I was a whole host of issues. Around the time we moved to Massachusetts when I was eight, I was obsessed with the idea that I was going to get kidnapped. Even as early as kindergarten I worried where I was going to sit when I ate lunch. So was I carefree? NOPE.

Yes, I got to play outside, and have my summer's off, but there was no running through fields of daisies with a posse of similarly happy ruffians. When I ran through a field I fell, sprained my ankle and got covered in bug bits.

Before I ramble too much longer, let me get to my point. No, I did not intend for my life to turn out this way. I don't have a pony or a gold medal in gymnastics or a real giraffe as a pet, but, if I'm  unhappy now, I'm perfectly capable of doing something about it. As a kid, there wasn't much I could do.

To me, that makes all the difference. That and disposable income.