how it feels to get old.

I don't yet know yet, I'm still young. But I can feel the panic setting in. Sinking. Stealing from my mental freedom. I'm not a kid anymore, and however nice it is now to not have to do exactly as everyone tells me, there's still the lingering sadness that comes with never being able to do kindergarten arts 'n crafts ever again. No more teddy bears for me.

Sometimes I wish I could be coddled again, someone always telling me what to do and where to do it, never any existential thoughts or anxiety. Just me and my brother, living in our own world in a two bedroom apartment, crying, laughing, and laughing because we were crying. Watching Dora the Explorer on a small TV in my underwear, eating dry cheerios from a green bowl (the cool kind with a straw built in). Chasing my brother around, dragging my beloved stuffed cat behind me, and whining until he would give me a turn on his D.S. Knocking on the door of the apartment next to ours, because the old woman that lived there liked to give us stale suckers. Going to school and loving every second of it; feeling like an absolute genius only because of the gold star at the top of my math homework.

Now I have car insurance. And missing assignments.

I know there are positives to both sides, but sometimes it feels like all the raw happiness, the kind I don't have to work for, was used up from ages 2-11. Everything's a game now. You have to earn the smiles and laughter, and sometimes, even when you've done the right things and did what you could, you won't be granted them. Because that's just the way life is.