“Sometimes I wish I was a little kid again because skinned knees are easier to fix than a broken heart”.
The last letter I sent her, the first love of my life, ended with this sentence. Though it feels silly there lies a hidden truth in those words. Any grown up, one who happens to feel a bit lonely in between the pain and gain of the great rush called life, might certainly have wished at least for a moment to be a kid again.
I am not an exception either. Sometimes I desperately wish to be a kid again. Or if I could get back my childhood again. As my childhood was in the 1990’s there is no place for the computer, mobile phone and internet in the nostalgic memories. Friends next door, the books my dad bought me and a tension free life complete my childhood memories.
When I had the thought that “if I could be a kid again” recently, the first thing that came to my mind was a book. ‘Kids and Cubs’ by Olga Perovskya. The stories of kids befriending wild animals and making them pets touched my heart deeply. Now it feels funny how I tried to show some ‘extra’ care to my pet cat after reading those stories and the cat, which, was not used to that level of pampering gave me a lifelong scar on my foot.
However the thoughts lead me to the same question again..if I could be a kid again..I realized there is a way as I happened to read ‘Kids and Cubs’ once more, recently. The stories lead me to my childhood days. I read those stories as a kid again. Instantly it came to my mind that somewhere inside, a kid lives in me. It might be because of that I was able to write some short stories based on childhood memories.
It was a great revelation that the question ‘if I could be a kid again’ has not much importance in my life. Because the kid lives in me. He turns up before those who are really close to me and also in between the lines of my stories. Childhood memories are always a good start for short story writing. It’s my humble advice to all writers that at least write one story based on your childhood memories. It will be a refreshing read for everyone, I’m pretty sure.
They say Heaven is for those who are kids at heart. Let the ‘kids’ tell some stories..