“Be more mature!” “Act your age!” “You’re almost an adult!” Every teenager hears this at some point. There’s pressure to grow up, to leave behind our childhood and enter adulthood.

“It’s time for us to grow up!” At this point, we’re expected and encouraged to leave behind Legos, crayons, our blankie. G.I. Joe is tucked away in the far corner of the attic, and Barbie was an unwilling participant in a backyard demolition derby.

Everyone is eager to move out, to start their own life - and I don’t blame them. It’s what we’ve been force fed since about the time we could swallow solid food. What bothers me is that people tend to forget we’re still kids. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old and we have to know exactly where we’re headed for the rest of our lives! We’re still young, still in school, still under our parents roofs (which seems to be killing us), but we forget that our time to be “immature” is nearing its end.

For this reason, I embrace the little kid in me, the small voice crying, “Don’t forget me! I’m not gone yet!” No, I don’t dig out my old Barbie dolls, but I still climb trees just to feel the rough bark under my fingers and get that thrill from climbing to the very top. I’ll take a walk in the creek to feel the shock of the cool water and to watch the silvery minnows glide past. I use my broken crayons and color in pages of old forgotten books. I’m still friends with my crayons because I know my time as a kid is coming to a close much faster than I would like. I have the rest of my life to be a mature, responsible adult. I’m friends with my crayons because being a kid is the easiest thing I will ever do.

I won’t shirk my responsibilities. I don’t live my life acting immaturely or forgetting that I have work to do. I still put effort into what I do so I can have a successful future, but if I get the opportunity, I transform myself from “young adult” into “kid” again. Like magic, I am able to sit in a tree house without a worry in the world. Like magic, I can fill in all the blank spaces in a coloring book and not worry about staying in the lines. Like magic, I forget that it will have to end soon, and I embrace the child trapped inside of me.