When I was twelve, I was in the car with my Dad, at a stop, we noticed a BMW next to us…. My dad goes…"I’ll buy myself one like that, when i grow up….", then I go to him..."But Dad, you’re a grown up already…" he goes…"not yet…"
And on those other times he’d see something big or expensive he wanted, that’s what he’d always say…"when I grow up…. Or when I’m bigger…" I couldn’t seem to understand what he meant by it… I was twelve, he was thirty five…wasn’t he all grown up? Wasn’t he big enough, more so old enough? He was almost thrice my age and he’s saying he’s not old enough or he hasn’t grown old enough?
To think, for all the times Mom and Dad told me off whenever there were things I wanted to do and wasn’t old enough yet, I always felt bad. Thinking life wasn’t fair, only grown ups had all the fun. That would always make me vengeful, like…”Hmph… when I grow up….. I’d be ---… I will!... –watch me!!!” And just thinking of the endless possibilities of what i’d like to become, do and have…. I couldn’t help but be very eager…. That’s when I started being impatient to grow up… especially at twelve, I must have thought, with the number of years my Dad was ahead of me, maybe If I hurry I’d be able to catch up with him…. To be able to do what he did, to have what he had…. As if!
From twelve, I turned sixteen….then eighteen (sigh)…..then one morning, I woke up I was already thirty!! Huwaaaaaaat?!?!?!?! The Big 3-0! And not feeling anything like it at all!!!! I may have gone through a lot, done a lot, and learned a lot…but only a whole lot more than when I was twelve, of course. I still didn’t know everything, didn’t have everything….yeah, may have had some…but seemed like not yet even close to the half of all there is. At this time, I would’ve known that growing up wasn’t a destination you had to reach at a particular time… it is a journey (such a cliché but true)…. a ride which isn’t always smooth…making frequent stops along the way to look back and let out huge sighs (sometimes,- of relief ,with pride, but other times –of regret)…realizing growing up wasn’t all that you had imagined it to be… it didn’t bring you just freedom but MORE responsibilities (liabilities even!)…don’t get me wrong, it does have its perks!!!… there are days…good ones, even better ones… YET there are still the bad days…and sometimes , the older you get, the more times you’d wish you were younger…especially on the bad days….When I turned thirty, I wished I was twelve again… (not everyday, but I definitely had those days….)
As I am writing this, my two year old is trying to grab the mouse from me, wanting to use it as if he knew how… earlier I had the remote, trying to put on Sesame Street, as soon as I set the remote down, he picks it up and tries to work it himself… this morning, when my sister was leaving for work, he went running up to her saying…"let’s go…I go-go too…c’mon let’s go..wait…wait.. I go-go too!"… i felt like saying... "slow down, my baby…you’ll get there too… when you’re bigger…when you grow up…"…"don’t rush, because I KNOW, when you grow up, you’ll also wish to be a kid again…."
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