by TBAcademics

Created on: April 27, 2008

Growing up is about butterfly kisses and bear hugs. Befriending Barbie dolls, visiting CandyLand, and adopting Willa Wonka became very worthy endeavors. Then, it rained, and in those thunderous days of adolescence, we changed. With age, responsibilities came, and we abandoned our Ken dolls, board games and Easy Bake Ovens.

Growing up is the coolest unless you lose you along the way. Your ability to play, spontaneously, at the drop of a dime, and to dance and do cartwheels, outside, in the rain, while Mother screams from a nearby window. Growing up is the bee's knees unless you need more as an older man or woman than you did when you were younger. The simplicity of being a kid kept us humble, less capricious, and certainly less devious, when it came to the schemes we concocted, and resorted to to desperately get our grown-up, sophisticated needs met.

Growing up was good news when we realized we understood the birds and the bees, and it wasn't the rigmarole our parents tried to snow us with. It was intense and passionate, upsetting, overstated, underrated, and so disastrous...all at the same time. It was terrifying and gratifying; but, not gratifying in any adult sexual sense... gratifying in the mischief of it, and the scorn and contempt we knew it'd conjure within the household of those who wanted the best for us. And that meant abstinence. That meant dying with it. That meant closed mouths, closed legs, dynamite brains, and absolutely nothing else explosive.

Growing up meant leaving home, and that was the bomb; until, it dawned on us, we had to pay for this. Money grew on trees, the Mama and Daddy money-tree, that is, and when our free and easy access ended, we were offended- but, too old to admit that we considered the cutting of the apron strings...treasonous abandonment.

Growing up was waffling, and graveling for that rent payment. Growing up was academic probation and laziness when it came to college; yet, we pulled it together and still graduated with honors, and Mom and Dad, with brother and sister in tow, came smiling and laughing and breathlessly murmuring, "Whoa, thank God, we made it." Growing up was like being born again, from getting a driver's license to losing virginity. All these milestones made us whole and broken, perfectly imperfect, and still flawless and egocentric, in our own eyes.

Growing up is a thing of the past. We're adults, and that's it. There's no gray area to play with. Throw our knowledge and ignorance in the same bag. We know everything

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>