Growing up has been the single most frustratingly annoying thing I’ve been pushed into, this hamster is not enjoying it’s wheel. I thought adults dealt with taxes, worried about cars and lived angry, boring lives. I’ve had some time to figure out that there is in fact, much more to it.
Like now, I have multiple bank accounts, I am stressed when I have a job, when i’m quiting one and all the time in between. I’m constantly trying to save up to buy a phone, a vacation, a gift for someone, a house that I might never get to own, etc.
I didn’t know just how much time I’d spend thinking about poop. That’s the adult problem – the awareness of the gut and it’s well being. There’s bliss in having pooped twice a day. Drinking probiotic drinks right after drinking a lot of alcohol to neutralize whatever is going on. There’s the anticipation for period poop so you have your monthly cleanse. A good vacation is no longer about the destination or the experiences there, it’s about how well you pooped during (which in turn affects your capacity to enjoy said destination) and more. It’s eating vegetables right off the fridge for your gut. There is a god, it’s your gut. And you need to fear it and love it equal parts.
It’s also spending time doing child-like activities. No adult games are as fun as kid games. There, I said it. Sure, we all learn to play chess along the way but hide and seek is what makes us giggle. We’re always finding a new puzzle or get our hands on video games we couldn’t get when we were little. I’m not sure when we’ll acknowledge our dire need for a playground or friendships. Alcohol is usually what brings adults together and bars are our version of a playground.
Ever so often I find children do things that seem so extremely odd to me that it inspires me a little. Like screaming in the middle of the grocery store because the candy they wanted is out of stock. I get it. I think adult me could use some screaming. I also find children throw things more freely. I can’t remember the last time I did that, the price tags haunt me. But the wants, those stay.
There’s so much I buy and say ‘nostalgia’ after, as if that alone is reason enough and perhaps it is. There are things adult money can buy me now like fancy study tables, encyclopaedias, famous five book sets, all the sugary fizzy drinks (turns out those are bad for you and you do in fact, grow out of it), a second pair of jacket for the winters (or even a third), lego sets, fancy pencils and cute erasers. Whenever I step out shopping, I constantly feel my inner child tug at my sleeve to spot things I may miss, we take our time most days.
And then there are things we can only hold in memory. There are those chips they don’t make anymore, the perfume my mother used to wear, the texture of an old bed sheets, puberty changing the sound of my friend’s voice or the Sunday lunch noises. The anxiety on the first day of school, the excitement over picking out labels for my notebooks and the lack of body pain after a long day of playing. I miss dearly.
Today, when I throw compliments around at strangers with ease, I always look back to little me in school, the kid who was terrified of saying hello and just waited for someone to come tap on my shoulder. The way I intensely hated my math teachers and believed that their disappearance would solve all my problems. So much of growing up is realising that most things, don’t matter. Not in the long run. The surprise tests, the betrayal of your best friend, the angry-crying failing you from making valid points during an argument, the blinding adoration for your parents, the acne phase, the weight gain/loss phase, most of it.
But it does stay, parts of it. Growing up is holding onto your hobbies and letting go of most of what you learned about yourself and the world around you. And that’s the beauty of it. I like to think that’s why your drawings look different. It isn’t the expensive pencils, it’s the shift in your p.o.v.
Amala Justy 