I'll never forget the day I sat on the stoop of my building, the summer sun shining brightly, dancing across the puddles from the storm earlier that morning. I used to love to sit there and just watch the world go by, but that warm afternoon, I decided I wanted to grow up. I was 10 at the time, an awkward age for a girl. You're somehow taller than the boys and you're sprouting in places you weren't just the year before. As I sat there, in my pink glitter jelly sandals, I felt ridiculously little as the most gorgeous woman walked down the other side of the street. She looked to be in her early 20s. She was slim, but had phenomenal curves. Her long blonde locks and skin sun kissed from days by the pool, in a tiny little bikini no doubt. She walked in long strides with her head held high, she knew she was beautiful and I was completely drawn in. I watched her walk until she was finally out of my line of sight, then I jumped up and ran in the house. I hurried past my grandmother, nearly sliding around the corner and into my bedroom, closing the door.
I stood there in the mirror, analyzing every inch of me, from head to toe. I started stuffing my bra after that day. I practiced walking like her.
A few days later I saw her standing at the bus stop, smoking a cigarette, taking long exaggerated drags then exhaling dramatically as she talked with another woman. How sophisticated. I started sneaking my grandmas cigarettes, not lighting them, but just walking down the street with them, my head held high, perfect posture and a very seductive saunter holding this unlit cigarette, taking long exaggerated drags off it minus the cloud of smoke. I must have looked like a complete idiot, but I was ready for this life. Adulthood. How cool it must be to do whatever you like whenever you like without anyone's rules but your own.
Now if you read my last article, you know just five years down the road, I ended my childhood prematurely by getting pregnant, but for this articles sake, let's stay in the summer of my 10th year. That summer I got my first kiss from an old boy named Malachi, he was such a bad influence and I'm pretty sure any boy with a Biblical name is.
What I wouldn't give for those days again. Were always in such a rush to grow up. It's nearly midnight on a Saturday night in June, I am grown, I could be doing anything I want, but I'm in my PJ's writing an article that's overdue watching a Snapped marathon, drinking a lukewarm glass of a Soft Red, about to enroll in my insurance program through my new employer and will probably fall asleep with my glasses on, laptop falling off my lap figuring out my budget for the month and which credit card payments I'm actually going to make...
WHY DO WE RUSH TO GET TO THIS POINT?
I can't get through the first part of my work day without a tumbler of coffee, and yes I said tumbler. Not a cup, a tumbler.
I'd give anything to go back to the days of no responsibility. Cereal and PJ's watching cartoons all day. Playing outside with my friends in the sprinklers or riding our bikes down the middle of the street hoping we didn't get caught, my grandma always yelled at me about staying on the sidewalks. That was seriously my biggest problem! What a life.
I'm tired of adulting. I don't want to do it any longer. I'm going on strike. Until Monday, because, bills.
