Life is a journey that we are encouraged to enjoy, a lesson that is mostly appreciated in hindsight, really, because the present has a way of sticking me in a loop of what is yet to come, an agenda yet to be written. Tasks required to be carried out and dreams to be fulfilled. The plans stay in motion and the cycle continues – this is where I am and that is where I need to be. Now is never enough, no matter how hard I try.

When i was much younger and stuck with the prospect of a future, of adulthood, it was all i could think of. I didn’t like being home. The limitations that would come from living in a typical lower-class family annoyed me greatly, and all i could think was, I can’t wait to grow up and design the life that i want.

The house that i want, the structure i crave, no clutter, no drastic changes, a monotony that is beautiful enough to be savoured. As the firstborn girl child, a designation that really gets you more responsibilities than you can handle before getting acquainted with the first stages of puberty, all i wanted to do was grow up. To be in a position where none of the responsibility was placed on me, at least the ones that aren't mine. My childhood was not a great example; it was also not a very tragic story, so it is sometimes difficult to point out where the line began. Where the decision to be a person without any responsibilities originated. Funnily enough, it’s always been my desire to be carefree.

I think it's a very normal paradox when growing up in a situation that requires measured action, and each action is equal to an opposite reaction. In the sense that it's not so parallel, being too quiet could be a slight, and being too expressive could be taken as offense, so the balance was learning how to go with the flow and balancing each curve as they came. In a lot of ways, it made sense why I wanted to grow up so fast. I desired the autonomy to be in charge of my situation, enough that i could control what my daily life could be without worrying about external intrusions.

Growing up is a beautifully sold fairytale that always underdelivers. Some people have a lot of nostalgia for being young, with being impressionable and daring enough to dream that they could be anything. I would say i have both sides of the coin, i had moments growing up that feel so special, except none of them have a solid basis in reality, almost. I loved the shows I’d come back to watch and laugh about. I loved hanging out in a friend’s house for long hours and generally just being around the general “cool factor” that was older girls. I loved short stories; all of these have a common factor – escape. It always felt like i was trying to escape. What i was trying to escape remains the question, except i have some knowledge of it.

The topic of aging began to become a factor when i was in university, as it is with timing and the ever-confusing question of “where did the time go?’

I was about to graduate and had grown up to a certain level, but was still mentally trapped in the same cycles and routines that governed my younger life. There were changes, but none significant enough to be memorable, thus defeating the whole purpose of why i wanted to grow up. I could go on and on about the delicate balance that is sibling parentification, having to learn how to mimic adult behaviour and tendencies because childishness did not have a reward, and behaving in ways that shepherded the lives of siblings much younger than I was, has a way of modifying “childlike tendencies” into being seen as foolish.

So i never actually learned to be a child, i was obsessed with the moniker of escape, and that escape to me would come from a place of growing up. The truth is that this behaviour has a hard time leaving; it cloaks itself in so many ways. In self-importance and the abject rejection of anything that could be slightly labelled as cringe, carefree, or irresponsible. The psychology of this is questionable because i am then attracted to the more carefree people in life, the people who breeze through life without a care, without extensive lists, planning, and things that would generally cause my anxiety to spiral if i engaged in that behaviour.

It is similar to my fondness for watching people dance, i am a terrible dancer; i will dance in my room with the windows shut, but will not attempt it in public. I will, however, laugh and cheer proudly at people dancing. It's like being on the fringes of something. It is beautiful enough that i would enjoy, but not enough that i would partake. This is somewhat hard to explain because sometimes i get reminded to live a little or try other things while knowing it is registered in my brain as frivolous behavior. This behavior gets punished, and although in real life adulthood no one will dole out any punishment, it then becomes an expectation for something to go wrong when there is an ounce of careless behavior.

Herein lies the challenge, i spent all of my childhood cosplaying, and now that i am an adult, all i want to be is childlike. The complexity of this is i spent many years learning this behavior and unlearning it feels insurmountable. I’m plagued with the question, will I ever get just to be free? Free of all expectations and responsibilities.

The conclusion of the matter lies in choosing either myself or choosing the people I feel responsible for, and each choice feels like an abandonment of the other. I am in my twenties and afraid to grow old because I feel like time is moving too fast for me to actually live fully. What if I wake up tomorrow and realize I lost my chance?