17

I told my mom that I don't want to grow up and she said "Well, there aren't many alternatives. The other alternative is not an alternative."

She's right.

But I don't want to grow up and I look back at the seventeen years and a few months of my life and don't know how in the world I got here so fast.

I can't count how many times I've cut my hair and had it grown back. Or how many pairs of shoes I grew out of. I miss my little white-blond bangs and my light-up sneakers, but those are long gone.

Tick tock tick tock the world keeps spinning and the sun keeps coming up, going down, coming up, going down over and over and

over again. Night after day after blessed night after blessed day

all over. All done.

I'm going to be on my own in less than a year but just yesterday it seemed like I had many more years than that.

Time has always been a trickster because it passes slowly when you wish it'd go fast, and it becomes a speed demon when you wish it'd just let you stop and smell the roses. It changes people, sometimes for better, sometimes not. It must never be wasted, but I can't say how many times I have not adhered to that counsel.

And now all the wasted time is probably making fun of me. It's laughing about how many good things I have not yet done because I was using it to do other, less important things.

Maybe there is an alternative to growing up. Peter could come and take me to his land, to the land where no one ever grows older.

But it's not about wanting to play forever. It's about being afraid. Afraid to be out on my own and to have to worry even more than I already do.

I want always to be a kid and to have mom and to have dad.

And maybe I'm simply afraid of forgetting. Remember. If I had a bottle for every memory I've lost, I'd be able to send a message to every corner of the earth.

If I was little again there'd be nothing to remember. I'd just be living it.