{"id":2762,"date":"2013-11-26T21:48:36","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T05:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2762"},"modified":"2013-11-29T23:56:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T07:56:54","slug":"when-i-grow-up-victoria-bc-11262013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2762","title":{"rendered":"When I Grow Up\u2026. \u2013 Victoria, BC \u2013 [11\/26\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"183079676_7e353267b3\"<\/a>When I grow up, I will eat sweets every day on the way to work
\nAnd I will go to bed late every night
\nAnd I will wake up when the sun comes up and I will watch cartoons until my eyes go square
\nAnd I won\u2019t care \u2018cause I\u2019ll be all grown up
\n[\u2026]
\nAnd when I grow up I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
\nThat you have to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown-up ~ Matilda<\/i><\/p>\n

I always grew up thinking that grown older is an obligation, but growing up? Growing up is optional<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I suspect that the reason I\u2019ve 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 \u201cwhen I grow up\u2026I will eat sweets every day\u2026\u201d 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.\u00a0 I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s still a part of me that opens her eyes to the world every morning and asks \u201cwhat do I get to see? Where do I get to go?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019acte, that lets me see the world in a kaleidoscope that I occasionally write down. People ask me how I write? I don\u2019t\u2026I don\u2019t set out to write\u2026I just live\u2026and because of the way I try to live, I sometimes see things in a way other people don\u2019t, and sometimes that\u2019s worth writing down\u2026<\/p>\n

It’s also probably the reason that when I get hurt, the sting runs deep…but that’s beside the point.<\/p>\n

People say that I\u2019m lucky, but my luck comes from something very simple\u2026<\/p>\n

Because despite the visa bills and the student loans and the ship-board drama and the occasional heartbreak, I simply refuse<\/i> to grow up\u2026at least not yet\u2026perhaps not ever\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been truly blessed in my life. I have a job I love, I have people who love me, who support me, and who understand<\/i> me. Who, in exchange for that, I absolutely trust. Very few people have the privilege of being able to say that.<\/p>\n

And yes, it\u2019s true, sometimes \u2013 more often than I like \u2013 I let negativity slip into my life, I do the \u2018adult\u2019 equivalent of falling down and skinning my knee and it takes me longer than it should to find a band-aid. It\u2019s true that there are still some dragons at the edges of my life, there are still some growls in the shadows \u2013 but those monsters under the bed I\u2019m a big enough girl to fight now\u2026but all that means is that they don\u2019t have (as much) control over me as they used to.<\/p>\n

The truth is?<\/p>\n

I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-vacation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Iy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2762"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2767,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}