The day my childhood died… this is a common catastrophe and anticipated doom. I heard it from my older cousins before walking through the doors of middle school. I heard it from relic stories of parental memories. I heard it from friends once their cherished childhood dog didn’t come home from the vet. I heard it sarcastically from an Instagram caption. Yet, I only idly felt the foreboding of this looming fate, as I tried my hardest to grow up.
I desperately wanted to be older. It began when I stole my mother’s eye shadow from her Mary Kay gift bag. This swiftly progressed into covertly reading the infamous American Girl’s “puberty book” underneath the playset with my best friends (even though at the time I was convinced eating salt caused your period). I went to Kohl’s to pick out my first padded bra and purchased my first forbidden thong in our local mall’s Victoria Secret.
When I reminisce on these memories of slumber party gab and bargaining my way into this coveted adulthood, I’ve never seemed more like a child.
I have one grandparent left, my childhood best friend died blissfully at 19, and my beloved cat Bruno went to kitty heaven. I’ve been working office jobs since the age of 14 and straining my brain to get all A’s. I spend hours in front of a screen sifting through internships and attend mind-numbing lectures. I sloppily dance on the weekends and recover with a hot cup of tea while a cat curls up in my lap.
I am living the adult life I saw projected across cable channels, which my eyes were glued to as an adolescent. It was all projected- death, romance, wisdom, maturity. I am an adult. I am a 20-year-old woman. Why does this feel like a tall tale- a forecast of a life that certainly couldn’t be mine. I drag on day by day; I almost move through my reality in a blur.
The people in my life seem like textbook adults: my older cousin who works in the stock market, my parents who own a small business, my grandma abiding in her old folk home. How could I be associated with this stage of life? When did I grow up? Did I grow up? Will I ever grow up?
How could I age out of childhood but not become an adult?
I think I had the false belief that adulthood meant change. It would mean that you evolved into a higher being of yourself. But you never really can change your core. Afterall, I am my core, and my core is still a child.
I’ve nurtured her through pain and loss, laughed with her when telling inside jokes, held her hand when she felt lonely, and wiped her salty tears away after she skinned her knee. I am still the child whom I’ve raised, and I can’t quite abandon her.
My childhood can never be dead because that means I’d have to kill a part of myself- a part of me that is so intertwined in my being. My rawest emotions pump through my body but exit through the lens of an adult.
There is no losing your inner child when you become an adult, but rather suppressing her deep down so you can’t hear her cries. Adults are cold, stern, and certain from the perception of a child. This attitude makes adulthood seem unattainable, untouchable. Even from the perspective of an adult, I kept chasing this role model of a grownup only to discover it was conjured by a figment of innocence.
As an adult, I am still a child. My memories didn’t erase. My trauma hasn’t passed. My friendships didn’t dissipate. I get cranky when I’m tired and cry when overwhelmed. These characteristics everyone is so patiently waiting to die off never seen to vanish. They tease me and mock me when I least expect it. As soon as I think I’ve overcome some childish tendency, it creeps up my back and dig’s its talons into my core.
Children are dependent and latch on to security and hope. My inner child has latched onto my person because she knows it is home.