Becoming Peter Pan

I’ve heard it said that people my age are walking around like “a bunch of twenty something year old Peter Pans.”  I never was a huge fan of Peter Pan as a kid.  I wanted to grow up.  Grownups got to do so many cool things.  And my life was going to be perfect, of course.  Like a fairytale.  Why not grow up?  I could eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I wouldn’t have to go to bed.  I would have so much independence and freedom.  I couldn’t wait to grow.

But the older I get the more I feel like I’m becoming Peter Pan, stuck in Never Land.  In some ways it’s my decision.  As I’ve grown up I’ve found that all those adults who told me not to grow up to fast were onto something.  And I’d always just thought they were crazy.  Why wouldn’t I want to grow up?  There was no such thing as growing up too fast.  But now I’m wondering where the past twenty years of my life went.  Now I’m wishing I could go back to the innocence and the simplicity of childhood.  And I do sometimes.  I eat foods I loved growing up.  I watch The Lion King (I still know most of the words).  I sleep with a stuffed animal and my “security blanket”.  I occasionally listen to the Backstreet Boys and my Touched By An Angel CD.  Sometimes I feel much younger than my twenty years.  I wonder when I became old enough or responsible enough to drive, pay rent, go to college, and feed myself.  When did I become old enough to have friends my age who are married and even starting to pop out babies?  I don’t feel old enough, mature enough, or prepared at all for anything like that.  I’d say the older I get the less I feel like I’m ready for those responsibilities.  

I feel like Taylor Swift’s song “Never Grow Up” says everything I would tell myself when I was younger and how I feel right now.

                I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone

                So here I am in my new apartment

                In a big city they just dropped me off

                It’s so much colder than I thought it would be

                So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on

                Wish I’d never grown up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                Oh I don’t want to grow up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                It could still be little

                I don’t want to grow up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                It could still be simple

Miranda Lambert’s song “The House That Built Me” make me feel the same way.

                I know they say

                You can’t come home again.

                I just had to come back one last time.

                I thought if I could touch this place or feel it

                The brokenness inside me might start healing

                Out here it’s like I’m someone else

                Thought that maybe I could find myself

                If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave

                Won’t take nothing but a memory

                From the house that built me.

                You leave home,

     You move on

    And you do the best you can

                I got lost in this old world,

    Have forgotten who I am

                If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave

                Won’t take nothing but a memory

                From the house that built me

In some ways it is our society that is keeping me and my friends in Never Land.  I almost have a bachelor’s degree but that doesn’t mean a lot anymore.  I’ll have to go on for my Master’s degree.  Which means more school.  I have a job, but I can’t pay for everything on my own.  It’s a frustrating to still be financially dependent on my parents but I know I’m not alone in this.  I’m actually doing better than most kids my age because I’m not in debt at all.  We want to grow up, but there are so many hoops we have to jump through first.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this:

 It's hard to grow up.