When did this happen? When did I start learning about life? When did I say this is who I want to be? What did I do along the way to make me the person I am today? Where did the time go?

It's all sort of scary isn't it? You wake up one morning and you're not the little kid you swore you were yesterday. You somehow forgot about that special blanket you couldn't sleep without or the little lullabies your mother sang you to sleep with. It all just kind of happens. You have no control over it, you can't stop it and you can't run from it. One day you just look back and realize how fast you are growing up.

When did that brown haired boy in your science class become more important than that new Barbie doll your grandmother got you? When did you start dressing based off of what those mean girls wore rather than being dressed by your mom? When did that boy become the one thing that makes you cry yourself to sleep at night when you used to be crying because you were scared of the dark?

It's crazy how so many things change right before your eyes but you don't seem to notice it until years later. Mom, when did you lose all that weight? Dad, when did your hair start becoming gray? It's funny when you look back at your photo albums and think "wow, look how much you have changed!" or "wow, you have gotten so big."

Why don't we notice all these changes while they're happening? Now I know what the saying "stop and smell the roses" really means. This generation needs to stop rushing into growing up and just stop and take a look at everything around us. Sit back and admire how small your little newborn nephew is because the next thing you know he's going in second grade. Oh and your little five-year-old sister? Yeah, she's going into her second year of high school, she's not five anymore. Don't forget about your big sister who you swore just graduated high school last year; she's turning thirty next year.

It's scary to think that you are going to have an entirely different family someday, one of your own. One day you will go to sleep as an eighteen-year-old girl and then wake up at eighty-seven years old laying on a bed while your grandson and daughter are sitting by you waiting you watch you take your last breath.