sometimes i rather miss the days when joy came from getting a furby on christmas, rather than from getting a buzz in a bottle.

when the thing to do on lazy summer afternoons was to go knocking on all the neighborhood kids’ doors and see if anyone could come out and play, rather than mass texting your phone book “i’m so bored what are you doing tonight? party?”

when walking three blocks to the playground was an adventure, and we could stay there for hours as the temporary kings and queens of the jungle gym and trying to flip over the swing set.

i lived in a cul-de-sac where i knew every kid’s first name and favorite game, but couldn’t tell you anything about their families, friends at school, or love lives (not that we had much of them in fourth grade, mind.) mostly because we didn’t care and it didn’t matter.

and i miss that, when friend dramas and boyfriend issues were nonexistent and the most we shared with one another was the inherent desire to PLAY and enjoy each other’s company.

we used to mix staining berries into muddy water in a hole in the dirt, and paint our faces like wild children and run barefoot through the streets until the bottoms of our feet turned black from the asphalt. we used to chase each other with sticks and climb trees (and claim our branchy kingdoms) and pretend that the sticky shit that oozes out of broken daffodil stems had healing properties. we used to build jumps out of branches on the ground and run and leap over them, and build forts in the winter and bury treasures we could never find later, in the vain hope that some future neighborhood resident kid would one day unearth them and learn from our interred wisdom.

that’s the kind of anarchy i miss.