Sure, there are millions of reasons to be afraid of growing up. You could fear for your career path or the environments well being. You could feel scared about getting older, losing a sense of commercial beauty of yourself or fear having to come to terms with death.

Out of all of those things though, with the exception of the environment, I'm not really that afraid. What I'm most afraid of is that as I grow into an adult I will lose myself, and my spirit and become some weird, suburban, tax paying, carbon copy of what I am now.

I don't want to lose faith in the world or the government. I don't want to value money or a house or any commercial objects over love. I don't want to feel jaded about life or give up on my beliefs because, "What's the point?" I don't want to grow up and constantly feel surrounded by an oncoming existential crisis, but most of all I don't want to change. I hate change. There it is. As inevitable as it is, I hate it. I don't like moving from place to place or adjusting to different personalities or making big life decisions. I realize that it's all for the most part a good thing, but I still don't like it, okay?

I don't want to settle. I hope to always be building myself and others around me up, and working towards whatever our versions of the absolute best are. Yes, I hope my career works out, and I end up marrying a cool person and that our families get along, but most of all I hope that at the end of the day we can always be proud of the people we turned into, and that if we must change, which we always do, we do it in a way that improves upon the people we already are today and does not dampen it.

I want to live, and be happy and love and not feel tied down. I want to never prioritize the amount in my bank account over the relationships I have. I want to travel and see the world and ask many different people their stories. I want to eat a lot of different food and dance to a lot of different music and read all the same books Rory did in "Gilmore Girls," and I want to be able to sit down and relax and think back and enjoy it all every once and a while.

You know that feeling when you've got your headphones on and you turn your music on and start listening to a really good song and it makes everything else seem beautiful? Like, no matter what is going on in front of you, the most mundane or common activity in the world can just seem so incredibly fascinating when paired with an amazing song? That's the way I want my life to feel like. Here's hoping.