Growing Up

Kidult, technically speaking, is a new sociological term used today to describe people who are harnessing a dilemma between staying young as a “kid” and growing up as an “adult”. I have read this information from a medical journal. And commonly, people who belong to this newfound age group range from 18-35. They are those types who can already start their own families but remain residing in their parent’s place for the advantage of not paying the bills and spending their income in gadgets, fashion or any other things that interest them; normally, things that youngsters would like. From this connotation, it implicates one thing: Kidult are grown ups who don’t want to grow up. And from there, I reevaluate myself.

            Childish. Apparently, this is how I was described by a colleague at my workplace. I’m not offended anyhow. I understand why she thought of me that way – the way I speak, the way I move, my talkativeness, the way I mingle and show tenderness towards others – I always remain to be a child.

Being the youngest in the family and the only girl, I was always treated like a baby; though I felt over-protected most of the times, I got to admit it, honestly, I like it.  Though challenging with a blood disorder, I really enjoyed my childhood years – years of innocence, living carefree, a certain degree of freedom and coveted love. I can still remember how I spent time when I was young. Getting up in the morning, taking a bath with Mom, Dad accompanying me on my way to school as I try to learn new things every single classroom day and when school time was over, I simply walked home to play and take a nap when I got tired.

            I can recall vividly the picturesque of the once young me – short hair, petite physique, charming little girl who always wore dresses. Seldom did I play outside the house or with playmates. I was in nursery when I began playing and collecting beautiful paper dolls and fashionable Barbie dolls (I remembered crying to my mom way back in Grade 5 just to complete my Barbie collection released by Mc Donalds with Mattel). I was about 7 or 8 when I learned playing jackstone. Along with the stars and the ball, I also met my childhood friends, Ayrein and April, who remain to be by my side up to this time. Playing wit fully entails working both your body and mind, and has outdone it via Chinese garters, the Pog craze (the small cardboard circles that children still play up to this time by whacking the stack.), volleyball when I reached adolescence (before I acquired my blood disorder called ITP), enjoyed the usual role-playing of being the cook (ala-Jang Geum), the doctor, the nurse, the teacher, and the actress and so on and so forth as the list never ended. But the greatest of all was when I had my organ or mini-piano and learned to play the basic children songs. If only I can rewind the turns of events and go back to those moments.  

I was so eager to grow up fast then. I was about three or four when I would sneak to Mom’s closet and play with her stuff. How I loved to wear those Mom’s high heels, her pretty dresses, and to put make-up on my face. It was lovable to be a lady! But now that I am, I realize it is not easy to be one. Life as a woman is not all about glitz and glamour, not all about fashion trends. To be a lady means to understand the ideals of femininity, to live by it and not just to act like it. To be a woman defines the real individuality of whom the real you is, despite no make up’s, no high heels or no pretty dresses. It is all about how you face the difficult situations in your life and if you can surpass it all, then that makes you not only a lady but rather a woman.  

            Back when we we’re young; we could be inquisitive as we wanted to. Asking childish questions with the adults, reasoning according to what we know, curious of the things we see and feel around us. Discovering what we don’t know, from A-B-C’s, 1-2-3, differentiating facts from fictions. It was the day of endless adventures, time of stocking and acquiring knowledge. There was even this instance, when Mom is reviewing me for my Mathematics’ exams; she kept on scolding me for not able to memorize my Multiplication Table. I cried so hard. I don’t get the idea why I have to know that table, maybe because she’s a Math lover but I am not. Painful though but reminiscing all those childhood memories makes me wish that I could simply slip to my old times, where there were no worries, there were no fears; there was no requirement to be independent or to stand on my own.