The world is such a complicated place. There are so many bad people and bad things – it’s quite frightening sometimes.

I remember a time when I was a young girl and my biggest thing to deal with in a day was that my mom was going to call me in when the street lights came on. I fell into bed each night exhausted and happy from playing outside, and smelling of the outdoors. To this day, that is still one of my favorite smells – sweat and dirt and grass and whatever else it is that makes you smell like outside. When I was very young, my mom worked shorter days and my grandfather would come and baby-sit me. We had tons of fun. He was also my babysitter when I was sick and mom couldn’t stay home. I remember one time being sick in my room and he was downstairs playing pool. He kept trying to get me to come and play him...but it wasn't working. Another time I was sick he took me to Chuck E Cheese to get some pizza and play video games and just made sure to have me home before my mom got home from work. We were so devious.

Then I grew up, mostly, and often forget about those times – the best of my life. No responsibility except to do kid things. Everyone healthy and happy – at least to my knowledge. Now I have nothing BUT responsibility. Rent, bills, debt, car payment, work. Now I have to deal with everything going on in the world that I didn’t know about back then – the sickness, the perverts, the famine, and the murderers, and the wars, and the overall ignorance. It’s all there and it’s not going away.

Then there is the illness of that person who was once my caregiver. He helped me and was there with me when I was sick and helpless as a child – now he is sick and near helpless and I can’t do a thing to help him. I used to think that I owned the world. I now see that I am powerless and that the world owns me – at least when it comes to things like this. I am at its mercy.

This picture brings to my mind those warm summer days without a care in the world. The wind whips through my hair as I ride a bike or run through someone’s backyard. I know that when I go home my parents will be there, and grandpa and grandma are coming over, and everything is going to be ok forever. I can lay in the grass and stare up at the sky and the clouds and everything is perfect.

I wish that I could do those things now. I often say that I would like to take my internet and my laptop up into a distant mountain range somewhere and hide from the world. I suppose taking the internet with me isn’t exactly hiding, but I can silently watch from my post without anyone knowing I’m there. I can pretend that things are perfect like they were when I was 10 years old.

I’d like to lay on my back on the topmost mountain and let the clouds brush over my face as they blow by. I could read a book in the sunlight, smell like outside, and at the end of the day grandpa would be fine. We would all be caught in the happiest time of our lives (different for each of us, I realize that) and we’d never have to leave.

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