You grow up believing that everyone is good - that the world is your stage and you can be whoever you want to be. You want to be an astronaut? Sure, you can do it. You want to be President? Go for it. At some point, though, your view of the world changes. The constant innocence you once knew disappears, and nothing but deception lies in your path. You come to a point where you decide if you are going to be a leader or a follower. You have a turning point, but the world keeps turning as you're still figuring out your purpose. You grow up...

In the blink of an eye, you start to reminisce on your childhood, when really you still feel like a child yourself. I'm nineteen, and I feel like the world is at my doorstep, yet people are pressuring me everyday (especially on awkward family holidays) on what I'm majoring in, when am I going to get married, if I have a job, and whether I have productive plans for the summer. Why can't people just let you be and do what you want to do when you want to? I should be able to take my sweet time figuring life out and growing up, but no the world is constantly pushing me to do it faster and faster. I have had conversations with adults that say the world just keeps moving faster, time is speeding up it feels like, and kids are expected to be grown ups far too early, yet they are the ones that question and probe us about why we haven't gotten a job yet or figured out our forty-year life goals. Like, can we just take a minute to talk about how I'm nineteen. Let me say it again, I am nineteen years old people, and I am completely clueless. Why is that so hard to understand? People wonder why girls tear other girls down if they don't act their age or do one little thing differently than you, yet they let the immature boys off scot-free. They expect the girls to grow up faster and prove themselves earlier on, yet the boys end up with the higher paying jobs and the promotions. And God forbid you go live at home when you graduate from college, because the world is probably ending and the whispers of disapproval never stop. And God forbid you don't show up to church every Sunday to say your prayers in front of all the on-lookers, because even more whispers of disapproval start to circulate. And God forbid you make a stupid decision in a small town, because your reputation now is built on that one stupid decision amongst people that only know you as the girl you were at that bad moment a year ago, not the one you are now. Or God forbid something bad happens to you, and everyone expects you to crumble into a ball and cry but if you don't, they think you're probably crazy - they never stop to think that you're just a stronger person than you are. The world wants you to grow up, but how are we supposed to do that when people are at every corner trying to stop us from doing so?

If one or both of your parents pass away, you grow up like I did. If you get stabbed in the back by your friends that have become people you never wanted to associate with, you grow up. But no matter how frustrated you are at a moment where you choose to be the bigger person, you will grow as a person while others stay small and stuck in their ways. You grow up, put your shoulders back, shove your way into the world, and keep on growing...