GROWING UP IS SCARY

This is going to be my last post as a nineteen-year-old…I know, it sounds anticlimactic. Big whoop. Everyone has birthdays, Chloé, get over it.But even as I say that, my tummy feels like it’s being taken over by monarch butterfly.But heart feels like it’s racing against Pharlap in his prime days.It makes me feel sick, and in all honesty… I’m on the verge of tears as I write this.I know, I know. I’ve always been a little bit over dramatic… It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?Even to me, it sounds slightly ridiculous, because there’s no way to delay the inevitable process of growing up… and yet, here I am.Absolutely, completely and utterly petrified.I don’t know why I’ve always been so terrified of the ‘g’ word.Ever since I was a little girl the very thought terrified me… It’s always been my biggest fear. Even before I was old enough to understand what it really meant. Even before I was at an actual stage of ‘growing up’.The youngest I specifically remember being hit with the ‘I-don’t-want-to-grow-up’ bug, was on the night before my seventh birthday. I went into mum and dad’s bedroom, sobbing my little seven-year-old heart out, and begging them to give me some sort of needle to make me stop growing up. To keep me as a seven-year-old forever.Now, having a seven year old say that they’d gladly take a needle is weird enough in itself…. But having me say it? I go into fits of panic every time I even hear the very word. My biggest fear in the world is needles…. Or, second biggest, I suppose.Because I gladly would have taken a million of those bad boys just so I didn’t have to face my biggest fear.Growing up.Anything to do with the word scares me. It always has.Any monumental occasion that most young girls and boys are thrilled with because it means they’re ‘becoming an adult’ scared the absolute living Jesus out of me.When I was twelve, I cried because mum suggested we go bra shopping.I cried when a boy said he liked me for the first time, I cried when I noticed other girls starting to develop curves.I cried when I got my period.My thirteenth birthday… I didn’t go to sleep that night, because I thought that if I just didn’t fall asleep, the morning wouldn’t come. I wouldn’t be considered a teenager… I’d stay twelve. I’d stay a child.It didn’t work. (Don’t bother trying.)My eighteenth birthday…. My parents (bless their souls) threw a huge surprise party with nearly a hundred people (some of which I didn’t even know). They spent way more than they should have, buying special food and beautiful cakes and preparing speeches and buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of Tinkerbell decorations.Eighteen is meant to be a ‘coming of age’. It’s meant to symbolise the fact that you’re a legal adult. And all I could do was cry.I slept in my parents bed that night. Every single birthday, I’ve silently sat up… hoping, and wishing, and praying that Peter Pan would come and take me away. That he’d come into my open window, laughing and telling me this was all some huge, insane prank.It hasn’t happened yet… But you can guarantee that at 11:59pm on the day before my birthday, I’ll be watching the window… Just in case.Twenty becomes a hard one again… because by the time you’re twenty… you’re no longer a teenager. You’re no longer a kid. It’s a proper milestone, an actual, numeric milestone that specifically tells the world ‘hey, this person is no longer a teenager anymore!’And that’s kind of scary.I think one of the reasons I fear growing a year older so much, is because of expectation.I don’t know who’s expectation exactly. My parents? Societies expectations of an adult?My own expectations of what I should be?Now, I know that no one is expecting an average 20-year-old to have their whole life figured out. I know that no one is expecting a 20-year-old to have their own house and be starting a family and be doing ‘proper’ grown up things… Although I know that many are.And many aren’t.I don’t know, it’s a bit of a weird age…. Half of them seem to be adults, half of them seem to be no better than children.But when you’re twenty, you’re technically no longer a ‘child.’People don’t see a child.Twenty year olds aren’t called kids, or teenagers. People don’t address them as ‘boys’ and ‘girls…They’re called ‘women’ and ‘men’ … and those words scare me…. Way more than it should.I refuse completely and whole heartedly to ever…. Ever be referred to as ‘woman’. As you read this, maybe you’re feeling the same. Maybe you silently wait for Peter Pan out your bedroom window every night.Maybe the idea of ‘growing up’ completely terrifies you.Or maybe you’re reading this and thinking I’m completely and utterly insane, that I’ve completely lost it…. Which I have, but that’s beside the point. I know that most of my blog posts have a theme…. That I speak of past things that I’ve gone through, that I’ve felt, that I’ve experienced…I know that a lot of kids feel the same way as me. I know that it’s not just me that’s terrified of the idea of growing up.And I know that in a lot of my blog posts and videos, I give advice, and ways to cope, or deal with things. I can do this because I’ve been through it, because I’ve had experiences and I know how it feels.  I know that I tend to share my life experiences and things that I’ve been through, and in turn, hope that what I’ve been through, will help some of you who are going through, or will be going through the same things.But this post is a bit different. On account of the fact that this time, I’m still speaking to myself. I’m writing this as a reminder to myself, not just to everyone else.This blog post is Chloe. Who’s cradling her 47 stuffed animals who she’s named and kissed goodnight just moments before she blurts her every thought onto the computer screen. This is raw. And real. And now.This is me, writing a blog post about something that I'm still currently going through, that I'm still trying to teach myself how to get through.I wish that I could tell you that birthdays are getting easier, that I’m learning to cope with them better and am even finding the fun in them… But I’m going to be a party pooper (pun intended), and say that for me? I’m still waiting for Peter Pan. After twenty years, I’ve finally come to the realisation that most people realised straight away.I can’t stop time. I can’t deny the inevitable fact that time keeps turning, that getting older happens.  (I know, I’m a genius).But I think… I think I’ve also realised, that growing older, doesn’t necessarily mean growing up.For my birthday this year, I’m not seeing it as ‘I’m growing up’, or ‘I’m an adult’.I mean, I still cry when my teddy falls off my bed, I still spend hours a day brushing my dolls hair and playing with my toy horses….There is no way on God’s earth that I’m an adult.And I’m okay with that.I’m learning to be okay with that.There’s a line from my favourite movie in the world, 'Mr Megorium's Wonder Emporium', which I’ve been reminding myself of whenever my heart pangs with fear about the future…It goes ‘we must face tomorrow, what ever it may hold, with determination, joy, and bravery’.That’s one of my favourite quotes in the world, it’s always really spoken to me… But in times like this in particular. In times where I’m so, so terrified about another year, about the future, about becoming a year older, it jumps out at me like a flashing, neon sign. The future isn’t something to be scared of.It’s something to be celebrated… and I guess that in a way, birthdays are the perfect occasion for doing exactly that.It’s celebrating that you get to spend another year on this earth doing what you love, and that you’ll get to spend many more years doing that.It’s celebrating the hope of a future- and stepping forward into it. With determination, and joy, and bravery. So, in a couple of days, I turn 20. And yes, I can guarantee you that I’m going to be crying, I have no doubt about that.But at the same time, in the words of my favourite old man, from my favourite movie in the world world.My life is an occasion. And I’m going to rise to it. This is nineteen year old Chloe, signing out for the last time.