The Irony of Growing Up

When I was a kid, I could not wait to be a grown up. I wanted to be on my own; to be able to have my own place, make my own decisions, dress how I wanna dress, eat what I wanna eat, watch what I wanna watch, etc. I wanted to wear grown-up clothes, have grown-up hair, and wear grown-up make-up. I wanted to be able to see any movie I wanted, to listen to any music I wanted to, to be able to go out dancing - even on a school night, and go to clubs to listen to bands. I wanted to have my own car. I wanted to live the Mary Tyler Moore life.

The older I got, the less self-esteem I had, and I felt uncomfortable wearing some of the fun things that the other girls were wearing. I felt self-conscious and like I was both drawing too much attention to myself, and not able to pull the style off, or trying to hard. I want to use the wearing a barrette to slick your bangs down to the side. I felt that look was too 'cutie-pie' and not 'me', so I never did it, even though I thought it was super cute.

Once I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I finally got some confidence to the point where I loved my look and owned my style. I started to wear styles that I liked regardless of how I felt they looked. I kind of reverted to some of the things I was too chicken to wear as a kid - including the bang barrette.

I've kind of stuck in that mind-set, but now I feel like I'm perpetually fourteen-years old. I say things like 'totes', and 'I KNOW, right?' and read Twilight and The Hunger Games and see the movies on premiere night. I still do the bang barrette. I wear Converse sneakers with my skinny jeans and R2-D2 tshirts. I don't think like a grown-up, I fangirl about Wonder Woman and Jennifer Lawrence. I follow Seventeen magazine on Twitter and watch Pretty Little Liars.

Don't get me wrong, I have a full time job and provide for my family. I do all the mom stuff you would expect me to. I feed my family and help the boys with their homework, do the laundry and make them do chores.

But when it comes right down to it, I still think like I did when I was in high school; I still like the same kind of things, and still spaz out over the dumbest things. I honestly still feel like I'm fourteen-years-old in my head.

I just find it weird that I lived my life to be old, but now that I am old, I haven't matured at all.