Never Grow Up

We rush so much of our lives waiting for the day that we grow up. When we finally have our own place to live, our own car, our own keys and live in our own town. When we move out of our parent’s house and go to uni. When we move in with a partner and have kids.

We spend our childhood thinking about how cool it would be to look like the woman we are inspired by. She’s so much older, and thus so much cooler. We spend so much time wishing time away. Waiting for the moment where we get to call our own shots, where we get independence, when we don’t have to clean our rooms because there’s no one telling you to. You can clean it at your own time.

We spend so much time trying to look older, by wearing makeup, fake lashes and trying to skip to being a teenager. Teenagers are so much cooler, we think, because they have more freedom and they get to leave the house and go out with friends and go to parties and go shopping.

We spend our early years rushing through life, without even experiencing the joys of the present. We don’t even know how much we will look back on these years and miss them, because were too focused on the future until the future comes, and then we miss the past and wish that we appreciated those years whilst they were there.

Then, nostalgia makes us want to go back to that day, when all our family members were here. When we would get together, bellies full, celebrating and playing games. When everyone would come down for Christmas and we were excited to open presents in the morning, or we wanted to stay up late to see if we could catch Santa. Back when we thought we actually could!

But, then the day comes, and everything you once knew is gone. Every emotion you felt is gone. You grow up too fast and life goes by.

And, soon, you’re in your twenties and you don’t know how you got there.

Life feels so chaotic. Responsibilities line themselves up one by one. Suddenly, you have no time for play because life becomes to serious. You watch your younger siblings and cousins grow up, and it makes you realise how old you are getting.

My baby sister is 18 now. She’s an adult, she can drive, she’s going off to university. I don’t want her to grow up so fast and experience the cruel world. I don’t want her to go through the hardships of finding your place at uni. I don’t want her to lose her spark. I don’t want her to change. I don’t want her to stop singing in the car the whole way to our nans, and being the only one able to control the music. I don’t want her to stop playing the three annoying tv shows that she has on repeat. I don’t want her to stop dancing to the kpop songs that I will never understand. I don’t want her life to get so serious that she stops being her fun, energetic self.

She’s growing up so fast, and sometimes I wish that she would stay this young forever. From the days I would pick her up out of her cot, to dropping her off to prom, to the day that I’m gonna have to drop her to university. Life goes by so fast and sometimes I wish it would slow down.

Being her older sister was amazing, and now I feel like we’re the same age. She’s grown up so much and experiencing life in her first year as an adult.

All I ask of her is the same thing that Taylor Swift asks, “Just try to never grow up”.