I’ve often wondered what life would be like if the rules of our society were based on my nine year old’s perspective. What would be important to me and what wouldn’t?

Would I eat two breakfasts instead of one? Would either of them be healthy? The adult me still loves Poptarts like her nine year self. Though, I don’t feel the need to hide what I’m choosing as I did back then. My grandmother let me have Poptarts at her house with a half of grapefruit and a cup of coffee but my mother said not in her house. My mother insisted cereal for breakfast like what she bought was healthier than a Poptart… Lucky Charms, Sugar Pops, or Trix really was so much better.

Nine year old me would have preferred having either one without all the squawking and finger pointing that I was being spoiled by my grandmother. I didn’t need special breakfasts with fruit and coffee.

But that’s just a narrow focus now when even back then I was aware of so many social injustices that needed change. My friends shouldn’t have to drink at a different water fountain than me. Nor should they have to sit in the back at Woolworths. Why couldn’t we all sit together. A child doesn’t see skin color. A child only sees the actions in the moment. A child is taught to judge. A child is taught hatred. A child is forced to choose.

“All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”- Elias Canetti

My world would eliminate all prejudice. My world everyone would love one another. Heck, I would give us all rainbow colors and we’d all be playing at the park together. School wouldn’t be required.

Just to be safe I would make every adult unable to speak or to act in a mean manner. There wouldn’t be guns. or any way to hurt another. Yup, my nine year self needed a safe place. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that so it’s fun to imagine a sweet place to exist before my childhood was stolen.

“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.”- James Arthur Baldwin