Tiny Hands

I've no idea why I wanted to be a grown up. I just wanted to be a grown up for the longest time I remember. I wanted to be a big girl. I didn't know what being a grown up meant, i looked at my parents and assumed it had to do with sitting in office, drinking lots of tea, coming back home to an amazing daughter (:P). I thought being grown up meant everybody else does exactly as you want. Oh boy! Little did I know the truth.

1. I didn't know that being a grown up means doing the right thing.
2. I didn't know that being a grown up means smiling when all you want to do is scream
3. I didn't know means being responsible, taking responsibility for your actions.
4. I didn't know that growing up means not being taken care off (I'm still taken care off)
5. I didn't know that growing up means attempting to explain things that cannot be explained. 
6. I didn't know growing up meant doing your own thing, even if it meant you politely piss people off. Growing up means not everyone is going to be happy with you and you have to be ok with that.
7. I didn't know growing up would mean setting up an alarm and waking up on time even on the days when nobody asks you to.
8. I didn't know, growing up means taking one for the team
9. I didn't know that growing up meant you can't bawl and cry and make noise because all you want to do is just that.
10. I didn't know that growing up means brushing your teeth twice a day immaterial of the fact that nobody asks.
11. I didn't know it means to own up, said you screwed up, take cognizance of your actions and learn stuff the hard way. It means you accept your short comings.

I often keep thinking whether I've grown up, whether I'm a big girl and I am in constant denial. Everyone I know treats me like a child because they see the little girl and her tiny hands, they see the running nose and needs help walking kid and they think I still need them, surprisingly, I do. When my brothers talk to me like I'm their little kid, I find it absolutely delightful, in this constant battle of being a grown up and delivering the grown-up-ness to the world, I find it comforting to be silly. I find it nice to be the one throwing a tantrum.
I remember as a child I was surrounded by adults and I saw them live their lives and now it leaves me wondering, were they as calm as I perceived them to be? How were they pulling this act of being composed all the time? In this very little experience I have as a grown up, I know one thing; all of them being relaxed and composed is an act. I just admire how well they pulled it off.

I wonder if kids think the same about our lives, I mean a lot of the adults I know think that I am chilled out, not worried, not tensed, in control, sleeps when she wants to, wakes up when she wants to.

Is the essence of our childhood so deeply rooted in us that we merely learn how to behave in public but never really give up the child in us which is why there is so much conflict in us. We've not made peace with our child. I know I haven't.

 I think when Kerouac said

"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives" he knew exactly what it meant.