Welcome to Maturity on Fast Forward.

Yeah, I might sound like some little snot nosed kiddo who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. Whatever, I am just expressing my life, and there is no way in hell you'd know what I was talking about unless you experienced my life exactly. (:

Well that disclaimer right there already shows you I'm not fully mature. Not close. But I am going to tell you about how in one and a half years, I matured about 7 years worth.

Hit rewind and we go back to when I was 12. I was watching Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents, in love with Green Day, worshiped Billie Joe, and I thought I was the coolest thing ever. I wore jeans, chuck taylor, skinny red and black ties, and black polos, thinking I was so hardcore. I TypEd Lyk ThiS alL thE Tym. I was a sheltered kiddo, I didn't know much about anything. Especially not the world as I know it now.
Then our house went on the market. My mom and dad were constantly going out to talk to the realtors and builders who were going to build our new house, and then staying out to get some lunch. I was home cleaning and babysitting my siblings for hours and hours every weekend. This in itself made me grow up, and learn to be responsible. I learnt to cook more than pizza and macaroni. I learned how to take care of an 8 and 6 year old. [trust me, this is one thing that turned me off to having kids for a long while] I learnt how to do dishes, laundry, how to make sure everything was tidy all of the time. I made grocery lists, I made sure my siblings homework was done, I made sure that they bathed. I went from being an older sister, to a babysitter, to a nanny, to an almost mother. In that half a year, I matured to the equivalent of 4 years.
Then we had to pack up and move.
I had to decide what was the things I really needed, and what was just clutter. I threw out my old treasures; my beanie babies, my home made posters, my random gadgets. I can't even remember what I used to think was vitally important to me. I chose to donate what I could to Good Will. That's another year.
When we moved into the house, I had just turned 13 and was ready to start acting like a teenager when I could. But I hardly got the chance. While my sister and brother were at soccer or volleyball, I was still doing laundry, unpacking things, organizing my closet, making grocery lists, and trying to make time for my friends. Half a year.
Then was the worst day of my life. I cried for 6 hours straight, then I went to go seek comfort from my father and mother, who yelled at me because I forgot to clean. So I cried for another two hours. [I'd rather not talk about why, it still makes me sad] Since then, I have learnt to keep myself from opening up fully to people, to keep some of me private, not to spill my guts out to the first person who asks me a question. That's a year.
With only a year and a half of maturity left to go, I savored the moments of solitude I could get. I then realized my friends weren't returning my phone calls because they didn't want to see me. They were out with their friends I had never met because I was home cleaning and babysitting. They were hanging out with their new boyfriends, when I didn't even have a boy friend. I was taken aback at how my friends just deserted me in my time of need, it helped me to see who my real friends are. A year there.
The last half isn't so dramatic. When I turned 14, I was tired of the same old same old food. So, I learnt to cook. I mean really cook. I'm talking complicated french desserts. Apple Tarts with Pecan sauce, crepes, a double layer chocolate cake with raspberry sauce and strawberries from scratch, grilled pineapple with nutella, Angel Food cake with strawberry filling and orange tinted glossy frost. Half a year goes to my culinary self education.

So there you have it. Seven years of maturity, crammed into 2 years of life.
That accounts for my poor relating skills, why I'm the only one not laughing at a penis joke, why I still don't get many friends because I'm used to being shut out, why I get overly happy when I'm angry or upset so people don't see me when I want to cry or punch something from loneliness or brief flashes of mental instability in the form of missing something that was never tangibly there.
That accounts for the way I am.
I'm not sure how I feel about that.
"Live for today, because you never know who you'll be tomorrow"
-Anonymous
**Thank You for Reading**