Stop this.

I’m still a child.

I’m still five, and the memory of splashing in the despairing rain with my green raincoat and Dad is not a lifelong treasured memory; it was just Dad trying to occupy my yesterday when the rain wouldn’t let up.

I’m still seven, and we had to put Oscar down last night. He was my first best friend with a thousand untold secrets and a million shedding hairs. I don’t understand what being put to sleep means.

I’m still nine, and my best friend and I decide to start a dog walking business. We constantly complain because we are too young to get any serious customers who didn’t patronize us. We can’t wait until we’re older.

I’m still eleven, and my brother and I are learning to surf. We have a constant rivalry, despite us both being as unbalanced as two upright sloths on a hamster wheel.

I’m still twelve, and we talk about what we’ll do when we finish school. We decide that we’ll go to Borneo together, and then come back home and study to become vets, my best friend and me. We can’t wait to finish school.

I’m still thirteen, and my first crush told my best friend he likes her. He asks me for help in asking her out. I help; she doesn’t know I like him. She says yes.

I’m still fourteen, and I’ve left my best friend and moved away. A new school, new city, new life, and it terrifies me.

I’m still fifteen, and this time it’s my turn. My first date, first kiss, first boyfriend. It’s a new world for me.

I’m still fifteen, and it’s my first heartbreak. He left; my second dog was put down; Pa was diagnosed with Leukemia. Three heartbreaks rolled into one.

But I’m sixteen now. I’m not a child. I can drive and have ***, I can travel without permission, I’m trusted to deal with peer pressure and drugs and alcohol. This isn’t child’s play anymore.

I’m not sixteen. I’m still a child.

Where did it all go? Why did I want to grow up?


I don’t want to grow up.

> a.t.