I feel like one day I woke up and I was an adult. My whole life I was told that I was mature for my age and that I was beyond my years, but I had no clue what people were talking about until I got to college. I cannot believe I'm already twenty years old, but in the same breath I cannot believe I'm only twenty. I feel like I've been through so much and so little at the same time.

For the most part I had a pretty interesting childhood. When I was younger, I wanted to be young. I never had the desire to be older like the other kids around me. I guess you could say that I have always been the kind of person to enjoy the moment. I was the twelve-year-old who still played with Barbies, and now I am the twenty-year-old who has no clue how to apply makeup if it isn't lipstick or mascara. I think when I was a kid, people might have confused being mature with me being understanding or compassionate. I think that I just had a different thought process than everyone else. While my peers laughed at the “weird” kids and made them feel bad just for being different, I made friends with them because I always thought that being different was cool. My teachers always thought that I showed how “mature” I was, but I honestly just thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't care if they were weird because compared to the other kids, I kind of thought that I was weird too.

Not to my surprise, but surprisingly enough, college is the same as middle school, just with bigger people and meaner things to say. I'm a cheerleader, not just a cheerleader but a captain of the team, so I guess people might consider me to be popular. I honestly think my popularity comes from other things. I think that I am well known on my campus because I interact with many different people. My goal coming to college was to break out of the shell that I had built for myself. I was determined to go from that shy, kind of geeky girl, to a social butterfly and I believe that my plan worked. Fall semester of my freshman year, I was having pep talks with myself every other day just to become a more social version of myself. Sounds crazy, I know, but when you're a partial introvert like me, it's not as hard and socializing is actually harder. Coming to that understanding brought me to another level of maturity. With maturity comes understanding and vise versa. That's why it was so easy for me to come to this level: because I've always had understanding. It seems like when you do the right thing for so long, the right thing becomes the normal thing.

To me it is normal to be accepting, loving, and to make someone feel like they are important. I do all of these things despite how people look, talk, sound, smell, or act. I think the day that people realize that, they will wake up and be adults.