4. Being a Walking Billboard For Brands
For some reason, certain brands (looking at you, Aeropostale) find it necessary to plaster their name in the biggest font possible across all of their clothing. As a child, I thought this was the epitome of high fashion. If “Abercrombie & Fitch” wasn’t spelled out across my chest, or down my pant leg, or printed on my forehead, it was the fashion faux pas of the century – now, in less dramatic terms, I would consider the opposite to be true.
3. Dances
Being constantly anxious about the upcoming dance was a staple of my middle school career. For weeks prior, it would be the center of all the lunch gossip – who was asking someone else to the dance, what new dance we all needed to learn, how many times we could get the DJ to play “Low” by Flo Rida before they refused. Looking back, it was a lot of sweaty children with poor style, attempting to twerk before twerking was a thing, in a middle school gymnasium. Good times.
2. Being “Emo”, “Scene”, or “Goth”
Don’t deny it – everyone had a point in their life where wearing black makeup all the way around your eye like a raccoon, wearing your hair in your face, and adorning yourself with rubber bracelets and skinny jeans sounded like the ideal concept. Screaming music? Sign me up. TALKIN LYK THIS? LOL LUV IT XD!!1! As I eventually learned, “rawr” does not mean “I love you” in dinosaur. Actually, “rawr” means “Go away Mom, this isn’t a phase, this is who I am!” in dinosaur. In conclusion, as an adult, I would love nothing more than to burn every picture of myself between the ages of fourteen and sixteen.
1. Being a “Grown Up”
Remember when the idea of having responsibility was appealing? As a kid, you wanted nothing more than to grow up already, to get the freedom you knew you deserved. You wanted to be able to do what you want, and to have people listen to you. Well, as an adult, having all of that is a little more bittersweet than originally imagined. Sometimes, I would do anything to be a kid again, to eat some junk food and take a nap, let my Mom worry about the rest, with no consequences whatsoever. However, it’s not all bad, being an adult – the freedoms have their benefits, the relationships are deeper, and you can eat as much ice cream as you want and no one can say shit about it. All in all, life is pretty okay, from beginning to end.
