A Shrewd Awakening.

It's not that I don't want to grow up. I just want to stay a child as long as I can. Take my time. Now that I'm a senior in high school, people are expecting certain things of me. Asking me certain questions. To which most of them, I just shrug my shoulders. It's not that I don't care about growing up, because I do. I'm not your typical nonchalant adolescent. No. It's just that I look at people like my parents and teachers and they don't seem to be having a swell time being grown up. I also don't understand the things about which adults are concerned. Suits and ties. Stocks and bonds. Those things seem ironically infantile. I also hate how adults are. Stalking around the earth like kings, who don't even condescend to consider "children" like myself. They forget what it's like. Almost as if they forgot they were ever children themselves. If only they could see that they are not nobles, but amorphous, gray, shells, merely pretending to exist.

It's sad, because I can already see myself slipping into maturity. I can feel it creeping into my being, and suppressing my inner-child. Certain television shows and movies just don't tickle me in the same way they once did. I am no longer stupefied by the simple wonders of nature, like rainbows, snow capped mountains or even from where babies come. And perhaps the most horrible loss of all, is all that remains of my imagination which once smoldered like an untamable inferno within, is but a feeble ember.

Just as depressing is the fact that there is almost nothing neither you nor I can do to prevent this. At some point, the majority of us will be consumed by the demon that is maturity. Life rapes us of our tender ambitions and leaves precious few virgin souls on this earth. All we can do is enjoy it while it lasts. And pray that just maybe, the transition into adulthood won't be so bad after all. I'm sure maturity has it's perks, (they have, however, chosen not to disclose their whereabouts at the present time). They have disguised themselves well. But I have so far uncovered one and it lies within parenthood. I have come to appreciate that ideas like holding your child for the first time possess a new sort of gratification. Hence, I have pragmatically placed my trust in the prospect that things will be okay.