When’s the last time you ran to something because of excitement?

You know, like little kids do. Suddenly you’re stepping off the bus at 4:00 and you run home fueled by the excitement and promise of S’mores Poptarts waiting for you in the pantry. Or anxiously pacing at the top of the stairs Christmas morning, waiting to sprint down the stairs to the surplus of presents waiting for you.

As I was taking into account my physical shape, as well as my embarrassingly low amount of steps on my Fitbit, I’ve realized it’s been years since I’ve ran anywhere—let alone by excitement. I have a motto that I don’t run to anything unless something is running after me. And with that statement, I’ve realized I’m starting to grow up.

Just imagine doing it now. You walk into the local alcohol vendor, and notice Natty Light is on sale for $11 and you can’t contain your excitement…so you sprint to the aisle squealing with delight. Just imagine the concerned looks as well as anxious whispers by people questioning your mental state.

Apparently with growing up, you trade in things for usually not as exciting things. For example, I woke up at noon last Christmas and wandered downstairs anxiously looking for coffee.

And I know people older than me are probably rolling their eyes and currently directing their cursor to exit out, but wait stay with me. Give me a chance to defend myself.

The other day when I was looking through the popular page on Instagram instead of doing the loads of homework I had, I stumbled upon an Instagram famous seventh grader. Her bio said something about “live laugh love, A-Team field hockey captain <3” and I was brought back to my days of Myspace, inconator.com, and whateverlife.com. Suddenly I was back sitting in front of the family PC, designing the perfect skinny profile.

But unlike my unimpressive 100 friends of Myspace, this seventh grader had over 10k followers, and looked about 500 times better than I did when I was in seventh grade. Where were her braces? Where were her layered Aeropostale polos? Where was the awkwardness that I painfully struggled through?

This seventh grader had great hair, great makeup, and was wearing almost nothing in all of her pictures. And here’s where I felt old. I wondered where her parents were? I wondered how on earth her parents would let her wear that, and why was she putting this on social media?!

I can feel myself slowly slipping into becoming the old lady that yells at kids to get off her lawn, and stop playing with those computer thingy’s and read a book.

I never agreed to grow up. I’d like to see the paperwork that I unknowingly signed that exchanged excitement for responsibility. Gone are the days when your biggest worry was if your next door neighbor could play that afternoon. (“Can [insert childhood friend’s name here] play?”)

I miss the days of pizza rolls and Drake and Josh. The recreational soccer games with orange slices and Hi-C juice boxes. The summer nights that I would spend doing cartwheels in the cool grass. I did a cartwheel the other day and my wrists almost buckled; they weren’t ready for that much amount of weight coming down on them.

I want to go back and tell that seventh-grade Instagram-er to not be in such a rush to grow up, but I realize that I’ll look like a Facebook mom. I want to tell her that, yes middle school is the absolute worst, but wait until you have to pay student loans. And sure, that boy didn’t ask you to the eighth grade formal, but that’s a whole of a lot better than you not getting a job after school.

The moral of this story, folks, is that I’m complaining about responsibility and I’m making you read about it. But I can’t be alone in this. If you’re feeling old and don’t want to grow up, hit me on my Myspace, and you might make my top eight.