I can remember the days when I’d look up at my sisters, my eyes glossy with curiosity. I admired them then. For they were the “older kids;” the ones who lived their separate alien lives. I remember their conversations, filled with gossip and talk of boys. They were so different, so abnormal. I was afraid and anxious of becoming their age at the same time. I didn’t see such a person inside of myself. Now here I am, at 13 years of age. I’m smarter, taller, and it’s as if everything I thought as a child was some crazy figment of my imagination. For I tried putting a definition to what will never remain the same in my mind: a teenager.

I can say that when I was younger, I bowed down to my sisters. Who knows why I dared to worship those witches! I guess it was because in my mind, they were the queens of a kingdom in which I was just a peasant. Those were the days in which age meant everything, and I, being the youngest, wanted to be older, just like them. I remember hearing the word “teenager.” So that’s what they were- teenagers. That day my definition became teenagers; people older and taller than you whom joke around, eat a lot, sleep a lot, laugh at the strange inside jokes, obsess over boys, watch lots of movies, focus way too much on their appearance, and always seem angry at everyone. And as amazing I thought they were, all those factors made a life of a teen so bizarre. I made up my mind that I didn’t want to be a teenager, and with that, a wave of confusion began to strike. I couldn’t possibly see myself as a teen, and even if I tried to imagine it, I saw nothing. One thing I truly believed, though, was that my mind would “click” into one of a teenager’s and that I would instantly feel like one.

I grew older and over the years it was as if I prepared myself for the magical age of 13. On the day of September 23rd, I blew out the 13 sparkling candles and sat. Nothing. There was no explosion or evolution, just me. I didn’t even feel older. It’s funny really, how naive I was as a child. It was as if I was so stupid. I was young though, and my imagination took over.
Now I’m technically a teenager, but I don’t feel a difference. I know I’m older, and smarter, and in a different school, but I’m still the same person. As for that definition I invented, I’m not going to say its true, but I’m not going to say it’s false. Because the definition defines who I am, a boy crazy, oversleeping alien. Even now, whenever I try to really think of what a teenager is, I come up blank because “teenager” is but a word.

When I was younger, older kids were the supreme rulers. They were living all around me and yet, they were so odd. I am now a teenager, and I know I seem strange to those younger than me. Children look up at me with curious eyes. I’m sure they think I am abnormal and weird, and that when they reach my age everything will be completely different. It’s my job to let them think that, but one day, when they blow out the candles, they will learn what I learned. Teenagers may seem glorious, but inside they are still the same children, only a little taller and smarter, but not that different at all.