Listen to me! Listen to me! My childhood is gone--long gone, not lost but stolen.

I was told maturity and growth would be asperion--not immersion into facts and data and ideas that I was never told to expect until I'm neck deep without a bottom to rest my feet on. I've got bills to pay, forms to fill, jobs to find, education to chase when a year ago my biggest concern was whether or not I should go to prom.

Now I have to concern myself with how I'm getting to my little sister's wedding and if she'll wear makeup because the man of her dreams asked from his heart, and deciding on a career path that will cement my college degree; I'm so dizzy if I'm stationary I'll lose my tenative hold on "me".

"Don't grow up, it's a trap" is right. These questions marauding me are a horrendous blight and all I want to do is curl up and watch a pre-recorded life that's worse than mine so when I wake up from the media stupor I'll be grateful, not disrepectful.

I know kids my age--that's right, at 19, 20, 21--who grew up the day the turned five. They've been marching to the beat of this drum and for some they're now numb to this drilling routine they call life. For fun it's drugs and sex and alcohol and anything that will change the humdrumvee to the funvee.

People I call wise tell me that this is the worst...that after this we're free. I guess it's the curse of being young and wild, we get all this debris to sort through, to master.

Today is another one of those days where I want to curl up with my blanket and pretend I don't have to grow up. Maybe good old Peter with his reattached shadow will knock on my window? But we are called to greater things than wants now. I'm burdened with responsibilities and duties and more grandiose things than I can understand. I'll take that adulthood with a side of childlike wonder, though. I may have to 'buck up', but I'm still going to wear my cowgirl boots and find that awe for the world. You know why? Because today, today is the first day of the rest of my life.