Childhood

Sometimes I think that letting go of childhood is a bad idea. Everything is so much simpler when you are five, six, seven... No one needs anything from you beyond what you are prepared to give. You don't have to worry about things like money and popularity and the future. The smallest things excite you, and everything is fleeting, passing in a blink of an eye, yet it seems like there will never be an end; like you will be little forever. Birthdays make you feel important. You are proud to say that you are one tiny year older, and even half a year makes a difference to your maturity.

Reaching adolescence makes everything more complicated. All of a sudden there's this thing called 'image', and you are paranoid about how people view you and what their opinion is of you. You don't feel any different at 15 than you did at 14, and the only change from year to year is the added pressure of a looming future, the decisions that have the potential to shape your entire life. School doesn't excite you any more; it is just an interim, the thing you have to do between weekends and holidays. Every Friday feels like the start of a long break, which makes every weekend feel too short, and the weeks blend together like there was never a weekend at all. Similarly, summer seems to last forever, until it is over, and then it is as if it never started in the first place.

Suffice to say, I hate being a teenager. Perhaps that's why I still have mountains of stuffed animals on my bed, and old dress-up costumes in my cupboard. Maybe that's why I still play with a baby doll that my mother said looked like a real baby when she looked at it this afternoon. Or perhaps I still play with that doll because it isn't  a toy any more; perhaps I play with it because my body is subconsciously preparing for motherhood. After all, this particular doll seems to be perfectly proportioned to my body; I can hold her in my arms, or sit her on my lap, or balance her on my hip, as if she were a baby of several months old.

Then again, maybe I'm just over thinking things. Who knows?

Does anyone else get the feeling that they grew up too fast? Let me know.

Until tomorrow,

Glitterb