This is Part 2 in an interview series, by Jen at Stay-At-Home Motherdom.
If you missed it, you can read Part 1 here.

(2) What is your best memory from childhood?

This question was surprisingly hard. I have spent the last few days looking through every last corner of my vast and cluttered memory, looking for that one moment of sheer childhood joy. What I have found are the stuff of dreams: bits of bright, vivid, surrealistic paintings, some painful, some disturbing, some beautiful, some strange, but none simply happy or good.

I was hoping that somewhere in there were some of the magical moments I've had as a teenager or an adult: my first kiss, walking on a beach at night leaving luminous moon jellyfish footprints, running on a path next to a lake in college, laughing so hard with friends that I can hardly breathe, making love to my husband, the beautiful crazy perfect night my husband proposed to me, swing dancing at our wedding, going to a hoagie place in my wedding dress for a cheesesteak (in my pre-vegetarian days), watching my infant children fall asleep at my breast, watching my growing children laugh and play with each other.

But all my "happiest" childhood memories, the ones that aren't painful or just bizarre, are bittersweet with an overlay of experience: the awe of seeing a Christmas tree surrounded by presents is filtered through the knowledge that Santa didn't put them there; the pride of that straight A+ (yes, not a single mere A to be seen) or that much praised piece of crayon art or that prize winning poem is filtered through the recognition of the crushing perfectionism that made it possible; and behind every action there's a retrospective underpinning of loneliness and insecurity. The older I get, the happier I am, the more secure, the more spiritual, the more healthy. And I wouldn't go back and do life as a child again even if I could.

But as I searched, I found one little moment I miss. I miss (oh, this is going to sound so sad) being sick. When I get a cold, I sometimes get this burning sensation in my nose, like a wetter version of the clean sinus burn that comes from eating wasabi. And I'll be so tired. And that's when I miss being a child, when I go back to childhood with that sweet nostalgia and longing one is (I hear) supposed to have for childhood.

I miss lying in bed and having my mom bring me saltine crackers and Campbell's soup (chicken and stars!) and soda (a special treat for sore throats). I miss feeling like I could sleep if I wanted to, when I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to. I miss watching endless hours of Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch and I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched and I Love Lucy without guilt. I miss staring at the wall for an hour if that's what I felt like. I miss having nothing to do but read The Little House on the Prairie series and Nancy Drew mysteries and Agatha Christie mysteries and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I used to think of myself as a mellow person (especially since I tend to hang with a neurotically driven and competitive group of, um, loners), and while I do project a calm, easy-going, suburban hippie mama persona, deep down, I'm an uptight, recovering perfectionist. When I was sick, as a child, with my mom to take care of everything, I was able to just give myself permission to relax. I felt secure. I felt loved. I felt I had nothing to do but what I needed to do to rest, enjoy myself and heal.