O Halcyon Days of Youth

I've been tagged by Stephanie:

(This one is a little complicated....)

The Meme: What Five Things do you miss about your childhood?

But first the rules to this meme:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.

1. Marti
2. Ivy Tied Up
3. This is Ali
4. It's the End Of The World As We Know It
5. More Than My Luggage

Next: select new friends to add to the pollen count. (No one is obligated to participate).

(1) Modigli
(2) Jon
(3) Eric
(4) Peter
(5) Vince

Your turn:

I miss:

(1) My family as it existed when I was a kid. I seem to have a good number of fond memories of my parents and my brother and me. There are pictures of us sitting together, maybe at the beach, smiling and having a good time. Those scenes seem more and more rare now. My folks are more crotchety (to use a nice word), which makes get-togethers annoying.

(2) My high school life. Yes, I was a nerd. Yes, I put myself under more stress than a teenager should have. Yes, my friends and I created all kinds of interpersonal drama over stupid, petty shit that wasn't worth the effort (who didn't?). Yes, I thought I was a freak for having weird thoughts about boys when I knew I should have been thinking about girls.

But I wouldn't trade any of it for any other experience.

(3) Being hot shit. Okay, I know it doesn't seem compatible to consider myself hot shit while calling myself a nerd, but high school was the one time in my life that I felt I was really good at the stuff I put my effort into. I did well in all my classes, I did decently on the debate team, and I had a decent social life. I graduated pretty high up in my class and I was truly proud of my accomplishments. Then I went to an Ivy League institution and from then on, I realized I was swimming in a vastly different pond, one where I was no longer among the best, but ridiculously average -- on a good day. Going to law school and graduating outside the top half of my class didn't help either. The decline continues to this day.

(4) My childhood naivete. Remember when I blogged about my colleague's son Jonathan? Yeah, that's the kind of obliviousness I miss. Young, sweet, innocent. I really was like that at one point in my life, you know. Now I'm old, bitter, and jaded. Hell, this even applies to those televisions shows I used to watch as a kid which I thought were the bomb but which I watch now and realize were completely moronic.

(5) The proximity to the beach. I grew up in Hawai'i. I'm not used to having to drive 1.5 hours (if you're lucky enough not to hit traffic) to reach the blissful, calming ocean waters. I'm also still not used to having to shell out for a hotel room to get near the water. Or having to crash at a friend's place in the alternative.