When I was a kid, I remember looking at the grownups like they were the most mystical creatures on this planet. For me, they were like Unicorns. I mean, seriously. They were independent. They did not need anyone’s permission to do stuff. They could go out whenever they wanted, they could stay up late at nights and watch TV, and nobody even forced them to eat their vegetables! What more could one really want from life? As a kid, that was all I wanted. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to make my own decisions. I wanted to wear whatever I wanted to, eat whatever I wanted to, and stay up at nights watching TV. “Being an adult is totally awesome!” that’s what the 10 year old version of me always thought, and like most of us, I spent all my later years waiting to grow up, waiting to be a Unicorn.
Now, 9 years later, as I sit here alone in my messy little dorm room, craving homemade food, all that I want to do is go back to my 10 year old self.
Remember when we were kids, our biggest worries were things like, not getting to eat chocolates for every meal of the day, or our mothers forcing us to take naps? Ah, I wish someone would force me to take naps now. During our childhood, we are so lost and fooled by the “no parents telling us what to do, staying up all night” part of adulthood that we fail to realise that the time ahead is scary, very extremely scary.
Let’s be honest. Being an adult? Totally overrated! I mean seriously. Adulthood is responsibility. Adulthood is about making your own decisions. And the saddest and hardest part of adulthood, which we all assumed would be the best of it, is not having your parents helping you every step of the way. Seriously. It’s when you have to get up early in the morning and go to University hungry because you are too lazy or too late, or when you are just too tired of eating KFC and all you want is homemade vegetable curry (My 15 year old self cannot believe I just said that), or most importantly, when you have to face the reality of the evil, evil world all alone, do you realize the intensity of care and protection your parents have given you all your life. We lived under their comfortable protective bubble all our lives, while they shielded us from all the possible harm of this world. If only we realized this at the right time.
We all want to grow up. We’re desperate to get there. Grab all the opportunities we can to live. We’re so busy trying to get out of that mess, we don’t think about the fact that it’s going to be cold out there. Really freaking cold. Because growing up sometimes means leaving people behind. And by the time we stand on our own two feet, we’re standing there alone.
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing up sucks. It really does. Growing up means realizing that there is no Prince Charming on a white horse waiting to sweep you off your feet, no Fairy Godmother to take away all your misery with the swish of her magical wand, and that life does not always have a happily ever after. It’s about realizing that you have to be your own Knight in shining armour, your own Fairy Godmother, and write your own happily ever after. And most importantly, it’s about realizing that Unicorns do not exist.
Simply, me. 