Growing Up

Growing Up

I know we can all look back and remember that fated day when a parent or loved one ask what we wanted to be when we grow up. As a child I remember thinking that being grown up meant you could stay up late, eat as much dessert as you wanted, and buy any toy you wanted without asking permission. I wish my parents would have sat me down and explained the real shock value of it to me. Growing up meant taking on more responsibility than I had ever dreamed and giving up things I never knew I would miss.

Growing up is really broken up into segments, in preschool they made you lay down on those dreaded blue, hard mats to try to bore you to sleep. During elementary school my parents tried to make me nap after school, only now do I wish I had actually closed my eyes and went to dreamland rather than pretending to doze. I am grateful to get five hours of sleep a night at this point. Those days of ten to twelve hours of rest are dead and gone.

Beginning in kindergarten teachers instruct you on the rules of the English language. You continue to progress with the teaching of English all throughout your academic career. Somewhere along the line someone must have deemed it amusing to make students grasp not only one language, but two languages. I am still fumbling and bumbling with English and I am excelling in the fine art of gibberish. I can eavesdrop on the local Hispanic population in Wal-mart, but am having a difficult time preparing this essay. This was someone's idea of twisted amusement.

Growing up also means growing old. No where did I ever read that when you grow up you grow old. It must have been in the fine print somewhere, a tiny asterisk telling me to scan the bottom of the advertisement. Your body changes, it morphs into something you can no longer control with ease. You start to diet and go to the gym, normal lotion becomes firming lotion, moisturizer transforms into anti-aging cream. I never dreamed that I would enjoy reading the business section of the newspaper or go sit outside Starbucks to enjoy a nice cup of joe in the evening, yet I do. I once had the energy to make it through the day without coffee, and now those days seem like a distant memory.

"Get up before you miss the bus again young lady," used to be yelled at me through the door. Now I wake up to an even worse sound, the ever cold and shrill "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP." I get dressed and head off to work before the rooster even has a chance to crow. The necessity of a job was a concept someone forgot to elaborate on, explaining I would need one to survive. No one told me that mom and dad would quit providing for me and kick me out into the harsh world of adults. In life there are so many responsibilities and bills: car payment, insurance, cell phone, have gas to get to class and work and still manage to afford something to eat on lunch break. Someone also failed to mention that