Growing up is something we all have to do. Whether we like it or not, we must give up our footie pajamas and trade them in for pants suits and protein shakes. We will have to give up watching cartoons in the morning, and listen to talk radio on the way to our job in a building full of people we don’t know. Growing up, is something I don’t want to do.

When I was younger, all I could think about was growing up, and becoming an adult. Being able to live on my own, drive a car, and have more responsibility. Now, as a fifteen year old, I long for the days when all I was worried about was Hannah Montana’s secret staying secure, or beating all of the boys in a foot race during recess.

Responsibility scares me; driving a car is expensive, and living on my own is something I don’t think I will ever be able to do. When you get out of the comfortable walls of middle school, your eyes are forced open to look at the big expensive future ahead of you. That’s when you realize--you don’t want to grow up, you don’t want to be an adult, you don’t want to wear pants suits, and you want to be a kid forever. 

I know that I can be self sufficient, and I know that I probably could be by myself; it’s just that I don’t want to. Being alone means that you really are an adult, and being an adult actually stinks. I have offered my mom on multiple occasions to come with me to college. I need her there to make me grilled cheeses and wash my clothes. Both of those things I know how to do, but if I do them, I might grow up.

Thinking about my future scares me to death. I have to start choosing what horribly expensive colleges I want to apply to, and I have to take the incredibly difficult ACT and SAT. After all that, then, I decide what I want to be for the rest of my life. Do I want to be a writer? Do I want to be a Director? Do I want to be a fireman? Or do I want to be a princess, like I wanted to be when I was seven? Do I want to be a mutant turtle, like I wanted after I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles every Saturday morning? If I decide what I want to be, I might grow up.

The sad thing is: I might not get to be those things. I might get a desk job, constantly sending e-mails, and getting people coffee. I might have to create bar graphs for job sales. I might have to put files in cabinets, and have my fingers covered in paper cuts. I refuse to grow up. I refuse to give up cartoons. I refuse to think about my expensive future. If I do think about it, I might grow up, and that is something I am not going to do.