When I grow up, I will eat sweets every day on the way to work
And I will go to bed late every night
And I will wake up when the sun comes up and I will watch cartoons until my eyes go square
And I won’t care ‘cause I’ll be all grown up
[…]
And when I grow up I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown-up ~ Matilda
I always grew up thinking that grown older is an obligation, but growing up? Growing up is optional.
I suspect that the reason I’ve done so well in life, despite the fact that I sometimes ride one helluva rollercoaster, is mostly to do with the fact that a part of my mind, a part of my heart, is still thinking “when I grow up…I will eat sweets every day…” I still, somehow, despite the fact that the world has really done its damnedest to beat it out of me, look at the world with a certain amount of childlike wonder. I’m still that little girl that spun around on the lawn until I fell over, and even when I fell over, I would watch the sky above me, still spinning.
I still really do believe there is magic in the world; I believe you can tap into that. Even at my most exhausted, at my most run down, there’s still a part of me that opens her eyes to the world every morning and asks “what do I get to see? Where do I get to go?”
It’s that part of me that allows me to giggle back and forth with the party band on stage, that puts the look of joy on my face when I stare at a wall full of butterflies, that lets me cry at an opening number or an entr’acte, that lets me see the world in a kaleidoscope that I occasionally write down. People ask me how I write? I don’t…I don’t set out to write…I just live…and because of the way I try to live, I sometimes see things in a way other people don’t, and sometimes that’s worth writing down…
It’s also probably the reason that when I get hurt, the sting runs deep…but that’s beside the point.
People say that I’m lucky, but my luck comes from something very simple…
Because despite the visa bills and the student loans and the ship-board drama and the occasional heartbreak, I simply refuse to grow up…at least not yet…perhaps not ever…
I’ve been truly blessed in my life. I have a job I love, I have people who love me, who support me, and who understand me. Who, in exchange for that, I absolutely trust. Very few people have the privilege of being able to say that.
And yes, it’s true, sometimes – more often than I like – I let negativity slip into my life, I do the ‘adult’ equivalent of falling down and skinning my knee and it takes me longer than it should to find a band-aid. It’s true that there are still some dragons at the edges of my life, there are still some growls in the shadows – but those monsters under the bed I’m a big enough girl to fight now…but all that means is that they don’t have (as much) control over me as they used to.
The truth is?
I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up…