Getting Older - Personal Essay

My name is Mykyta and this is Getting Older. Getting Older is really lame, at least to me. Growing up is a part of your life and what you finally need to start taking responsibility for the things you've done. Growing up is inevitable, given you're still alive by the time it happens and I think that's why it's such a hard concept for me to grasp. When did I stop being a four-year-old? When did seven and eight pass me by? Why does my age have two digits instead of one? Stop. This isn't fun. Eleven years old and I've kissed someone.

When did I become one of the big kids that I used to sit on the bus and watch and think, "Hey, I can't wait to be that big someday"? God, I was so dumb. When did, "Hey, that's a really nice picture you drew for me. Let me put it on the fridge," become "Mykyta, I don't care. Stop drawing a picture of an elephant. Where are you going to college?" When did I become big? What happened to not having to care about my future? What happened to, "Hey, mom. I skinned my knee playing tag with my friends. Can you make me a grilled cheese sandwich?"

I miss being a little kid. I miss having a dog that was bigger than me and I miss the fact that my biggest concerns were who I was going to have a sleepover with that night and what video games my friends were playing, and I miss being so small that I didn't have to worry at all about being cool. When you're a little kid, you have no reason to hate yourself and you have no regrets, and I miss not having regrets, and I wish I never did anything that would cause me to have regrets, and I wish I never hated myself.

What is cool? When you start to grow up, you start to get this false sense of what's cool. A sense of assurance massed with clothes and hairstyles and products that somehow promise you friends. Money promises you friends. Is cool going to all of the parties, getting drunk, getting high and making a fool of yourself in front of people you know, as if you have to prove yourself to anyone but yourself. Is cool having the new iPhone and constantly upgrading your Instagram and your Twitter, but not your Facebook because Facebook's been overrun by old people. Ew, old people, they're not cool. How come nobody warned me?

I mean, yes, we all say growing up is really hard and you're going to have to start taking responsibility for things, but why didn't they teach me that as you slowly age, the fun decays, the magic of the world suddenly goes away. Imagination, gone. A whole nation built on consumerism. I got my childhood from a cartoon sponge, and I thought that cartoon sponge was there for me and people all across the world enjoyed it too. But as I grew and changed my view, I saw my mind was quite askew and the things I saw just were not true but rather done for money.

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