The Tribune

DIANE Phillips is taking a rare break this week and letting her daughter, Paula Welch, step up to the keyboard with a little word magic of her own. Enjoy.

I hereby tender my resignation as an adult.

To whom it may concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8-year-old again.

I want to go to McDonald’s and think that it is a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks.

I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to play dodgeball at recess and paint with watercolours in art. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer’s day.

I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colours, multiplication tables and nursery rhymes, but that didn’t bother you because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.

I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. Somewhere in our youth, we matured and learned too much. There are nuclear weapons, war, prejudice and abused children. Lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and death. A world where companies poison our water and our soil, and our children kill.

What happened to the times when we thought everyone would live forever because we did not grasp the concept of death? When the worst thing in the world was if someone took the jump rope from you or picked you last for the softball team. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.

I want to return to the days when children played hide-‘n-seek outside instead of being glued to a television, tablet or cellphone screen, when video games were as harmless as PacMan instead of spine-ripping, blood-splattering mind-numbers like Mortal Combat and TV still had some shows on that weren’t about sex, killing and lies.

I remember being naïve and thinking everyone was happy because I was. Afternoons were spent climbing trees and fences and riding my bike. Danger was daring to pick fruit from a neighbour’s tree.

I never worried about time, bills or where I was going to find the money to fix my car. I used to wonder what I was going to be when I grew up, not worry about what I’ll do if this doesn’t work out. I want to live simple again.

I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, the imagination, mankind and making angels in the snow.

So here’s my checkbook and my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further you’ll have to catch me first, cause

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