When you were a little kid you always envisioned what it was going to be like when you grew up. You thought you would have the perfect house, the perfect job, the perfect family, and that everything would come easy. But the older you got you realized those expectations were not nearly as true as the reality of it all.
In reality, you really don’t feel as grown up as you are. As a kid, you thought 16 years old was so old and mature let alone 20 years old. But once you reach that age you feel like you don’t feel as old as you thought you would -- you still feel like that little 6-year-old and you wonder how you got to this point and how fast time has flown.
When you were a kid you thought the second you were a “grown up” you wouldn’t need your parents anymore. In reality, freaking out to your parents about growing up is a daily thing. We go to our parents for every little problem: from killing a spider to our social security number to setting up a job interview and everything in between our parents put up with these constant questions because they understand where we’re coming from and were exactly in our shoes.
As a kid you thought you would have your whole life planned out, but you really don’t. You thought the second you turned 18 you would know exactly what you were going to do with your life and have everything figured out. But you soon realize you’re still trying to figure that out and your plan for your life is constantly changing. It’s a huge decision to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life and the truth is it’s always going to be changing. Your career is going to be ever-changing and morphing just as you are in your own life.
When you were younger you thought money was a lot easier to make. You didn’t take into consideration how much things cost or the concept of money in general. You thought it was easy to make money, it wouldn’t take any time at all, and you would always have money to spend on the things you wanted. Now, working long hours at multiple part-time jobs to receive minimum wage or staring at the vast amount of college tuition and the impending bills terrifies you, and you miss the days when money seemed so simple.
You thought you would find your one true love and it would be a fairytale romance. If you were like me as a child and were obsessed with Disney you can understand the misconception that there will be a magical moment when your true love will walk into a room and you guys will ride off into the sunset. In reality, it can be a lot harder to find Prince Charming and even if you do find him, the relationship isn’t always as magical as fairytales made it seem. There will be fights, heartbreak, and sometimes breaking up and that just wasn’t even something you considered when you envisioned your true love as a kid.
You thought once you were “grown up” everyone would look at you as so mature, but really they still look at you like a kid. Even if you try to convince yourself that you’re old and grown up, people who are older than you still look at you as if you were a baby.
When you’re older you realize how much goes into growing up. You used to think all it took to grow up was that you were going to grow taller and get older. You knew the basics: you were going to find a job, own a house and car, and have a family. But you didn’t realize the amount of maturity that goes into growing up. You learn a lot about the world through not only your perspective but from others’ perspectives as well. You develop your own opinions and even though you had opinions as a kid, these opinions are deeper and more complex than trivial opinions you had as a child. You didn’t realize all the aspects that go into being mature and making adult decisions.
As a child you thought you could be anything you wanted to be, and when you grew up you realized you had to be realistic. Let’s face it. At some point in your childhood, you wanted to either be a princess or a firefighter. But, when you got older your dreams most likely changed and you had to decide to go into a career that was more realistic. You had to take into account certain aspects of a career like money and the education required to pursue that career. Your childhood fantasies had to take a back seat or they disappeared altogether to make room for your new career plans.
As a kid all you wanted to do was grow up and now that it has happened it can be very overwhelming and terrifying. But try to embrace this stage in your life and it’ll get easier each day. But if you ever doubt yourself, put on your acting shoes and revert to your mindset as a child and play "grown up."
