Growing Up

I remember being a little girl dressing up with my neighbor in my moms old shoes and oversized shirts, wrapping our whistles around our necks and playing in the street while we as "teachers" were manning the "playground" and paying close attention to the invisible students that ran wild. I remember riding bikes and somehow in an instant, my bike could be anything from a spaceship to a Mercedes. Dolls could come alive in my imagination as much as sleds could turn into horses. Anything was possible with a little youthful imagination. Those days were the days when the biggest drama in my day was when my neighbor wouldn't come out to play because she had some incredible task of cutting paper, or, trying to figure out what Big Wheel to use in the block party race. When the highlight of the year was going to the circus or making it to Worlds of Fun a few times. Those were the days. Its amazing how every year thereafter that of being six changed ever so slightly until now, I am twenty-five, I look around me and see envelopes full of bills, a work schedule plastered to my refrigerator door, not to mention the fact that I even HAVE a refrigerator door, a pile of laundry sitting in a laundry basket at home, a grocery list, a myriad of friends with their dramatic tales left on my voicemail, and a car that needs gas at the cost of $3.00 a gallon... what happened? Where did my days of adolescence and imagination go? The most imagination I can conjure up these days is imagining that I win a million bucks to pay off all my student loans and buy a new car-- which is far less glamorous than what I had imagined as a child. like, whatever happened to imagining I was a princess or a doctor, or anything else I wanted to be for that matter. When did life take an unforseen turn? I mean, my whole youth I spent trying to be an adult... I couldnt wait to grow up and get a job, get a car, get married, have a family, have money, etc... and now that I am grown, I want to be a kid again! Now, thats irony, if I do say so myself. Being an adult sucks. Far too much responsibility. Far too much reality, as well, which is my problem. I love living in the naive world where everything is perfect - yet it seems more and more that I am realizing that I see things through rose-colored glasses for the most part, and that things aren't always roses out there in the big-bad-world. Some people are mean, marriages don't always last, people don't want to take responsibility for their children, princesses don't exist with the glass slipper, Dr's foul up and have malpractice suits filed against them, people get laid off--- and sleds are just sleds, invisible kids are just invisible, and no one even owns a big wheel anymore... Growing up sucks.