For a hot second in my life, fourth grade to be exact, I was actually one of the taller kids in my year. I am now a senior in college and I’m one of the tiniest people out of everyone.

Needless to say, I am not too familiar with the actual process of growing being that I’ve stood comfortably around my current height of 5″2ish. (I say ish because on some days I’m definitely 5″2 and others leave more height to be desired.) One might be inclined to say I haven’t grown much. And yes, physically that is true. Mentally? Man I’ve spent waaaay too much being a grown up.

Remember when you were younger? That all we ever wanted to grow up? Geez, why in the world did we ever want to rush to this part of life. It baffles my mind that all I wanted to do was be a “grown up” and yet all I currently want to do is curl up and cry any time someone mentions the world after college. It’s not that I’m not essentially ready to take on the next chapter, it’s just so unknown.

This won’t be my first time jumping into uncharted waters, but it’s still a scary as hell concept to actually wrap my head around the fact that it’s all going to be real and not just an idea or theory I throw around with my friends. It’s pretty stressful as hell and scary is the smallest of words I can use to express what I think of the future. It honestly kills me to think about how much time and energy I’ve had to invest in my future.

One of the greatest things I learned while in high school and early in college was to appreciate things in the moments as they happened. I’m still the type of person who has a few back up plans ready for any and every given situation I somehow find myself in, but I have learned that sometimes all you need to do is just be.

I can’t remember most of my childhood. I can’t remember what it was like to be a kid because all I remember was just basically doing what I do now: Just going from activity one to activity two, all the while building up something that my future could benefit greatly from. Every practice at ballet was just building up to the next recital, every time my feet hit the ice was hopefully leading me to be just like my siblings and skate, every time I stepped onto the diamond was a chance I could actually be good at something, everything always not for my own pleasure. Yes it was fun but it wasn’t just to be a kid. It was to be a success.

According to all those things, at least back when I was younger, I’ve pretty much failed to be a success. I know I definitely failed at doing what most associate with being a kid. I was trailed along to various outings but never really was given room to grow and explore myself. In hindsight, it makes a lot more sense why I never found happiness in following the normalized standards of what success was in my life. I was just constantly trying different hats and labels to define myself under and was just at a complete loss. I was never a kid because I never really just lost myself in having fun to be happy.

Someone recently asked me to just be a kid and relax. It was slightly mortifying when I replied that I honestly didn’t know how. My life was always a schedule, no time for spontaneous adventures with friends to look back on in the future. Always just working towards a goal I was told that would make me happy. All I knew was the old saying of work now, play later. I just never had the chance to actually play until a little more than halfway through my high school career.

I know I missed out on a lot. I know a significant amount of the reasons why I thrive on deadline and schedules is because that’s how my entire life was conditioned to be lived. And as much as I love how it brought me to eventually coming to King’s, finding my passion and possible future while most importantly finding myself, it just sucks when I have to admit that I don’t know what it’s like to be a kid.

My huge passion for a good story definitely stems from the fact that I always just wanted to have a crazy adventure or some amazing story to tell someday. I’ve grown into the person I needed to be and I’m definitely doing things with my life that makes me happy where I’ve ended up. But I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that there wasn’t some residual bitterness when looking back and realizing that my tendency to goof off and be a giant child with a drinking license is because I don’t believe I was really a kid.