Age and Maturity

Posted August 11, 2015 by Hayley Botnen

It’s my birthday on the 14th. I’m turning 25. It feels weird. It’ll be my first birthday celebration without either my family or my best friend. I have friends to celebrate with. Awesome friends who I am so glad to have in my life. We’re going to the Museum of Science and then finding food somewhere. That is my birthday plan. Growing up, I loved throwing birthday parties. Having a birthday in the summer meant that it was hit-or-miss for whether people would be in town to show up, but it also meant that I could throw my party basically any day. I would spend all summer planning my birthday party. When I was in my late teens, I worked at the Fair in my hometown. It happened to fall on my birthday every year. So every year I would work on my birthday. I started a tradition for myself to get a caramel apple on my birthday. I don’t know where to get a caramel apple in Boston. It’s weird to grow-up. I don’t feel 25. I don’t feel like an adult. I do adult things though, like trying to figure out how to move and getting a job and being half-way through grad school. I still love “kid stuff” too. I ate French Toast Crunch for breakfast. I can’t remember the last book I read that didn’t fall into the young adult or child category. I’ve been thinking about age and maturity a lot lately. Mostly because of my upcoming birthday, but also because I’ve been interning at a publishing company and seeing how publishers mark books with age categories. I see books labelled ages 5-7, and I worry about the 8 year olds who want to read it but feel like they can’t or the 9 year old who is teased for reading at the lower level. I worry about the adults who force their child to read by age level or grade level. I worry about the stories we miss because we become so focused on abiding by these dictations. I might be turning 25. I might have weird adult worries. But I still feel like I did as a teenager. I still feel like I did as a 3rd grader. Emotions don’t go away when you grow up. They change, but they’re still there. What thoughts do you have about growing up and maturing (or not maturing)? Let me know in the comments.

 

All the Best –

Hayley