All grown-ups were children first (but few remember it...)

" Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?". They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him. "
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (probably my favorite book in the world)

The Opera House, Paris, France

I've often bemoaned on the fact that growing up sucks. Growing up means you take responsibility for yourself and those you intend to/ have to support.
But what us a grown up really? A person able to make difficult decisions? A person able to make money to provide for the family? Someone who dresses like her age, and not her shoe size? Someone who stop playing around because things are serious now? Someone who doesn’t do silly things because they think it would undermine their grown up-ness?

If all that above are what Grown ups are and what Grown ups do, I think I've been one since I was about 10 years old. I made decisions to join clubs that would affect my PSLE exams (believe me, if you fail these and you live in Singapore, your future is over pretty much) to a good outcome. I chose to study with timetables and divided my time between studying and doing chores.
I was actually doing quite well at this and getting good grades in school.

But the thing is, when I turned 15, I started feeling trapped. I started thinking, if this is my life now, I have nothing to look forward to. SO I slowly unraveled the chain locked on my feet and I walked - with a limp, back into my inner child's world.

I sat on the swings, I just hung out, did mindless things like have food fights, drank alcohol while I was still underage. I did silly things, i did them because I was afraid of what the grown up me had become and I wanted my lost youth. I wanted my lost youth back.

But once you lose something like your youth, it never comes back to you, really. SO you move on, trying to maintain a balance between the kid in you and the grown-up that people expected you to be.

I'm trying to balance that out now. But I'm having a hard time though. For example, I don't balance my check book. And I still dress like girls in college. (Or do the girls in college dress like me?) I refuse to dress somber colors to work, and if they didn't like my Red 4 inch platform heels, then so be it.

Come down to it, apart from that period of my life from 10 to 14 where I was all super organized, and "had it together", I'll never be a grown up again. Because well, I want to be able to ask questions that matter.