barbies. tents. eyeliner. hairspray.

jesse: hannah come build a tent with me!
hannah: jesse, you know i'm busy. i don't have time to play 'tent.'
jesse: but you're always busy.

growing up is scary. i now understand why peter pan never wanted to grow up. there's so many decisions to make. so many responsibilities. so much presure.

i remember playing barbies with my dad, we would set up 'barbie world' in the living room and lay there for hours fantasizing barbie and ken's dream world. if we weren't playing barbies we were hiding out under a tent we made. We would lay blankets under the kitchen table and bring in a flashlight and read stories and eat pizza all night long.

lets fast forward a few years to sixth grade. suddenly, my friends stopped wanting to play with barbies or hide out under a tent all night. they stopped wanting to play pretend. now, the cool thing to do was sit in someone's basement talking about boys and gossiping about the girls in our class who still played with barbies. Our barbie and ken dolls were replaced with eyeliner and hairspray. slowly, things began to change that year.

lets fast forward even more to ninth grade. my school's advisor came to talk to my class about college. i didnt want to think about college-that was four whole years away! he told us that we needed to start thinking about our future:where we wanted to go to school, what we wanted to study, etc. well not so long after that my youth group was talking about relationships. my pastor told us that the decisions we make now, will effect us for the rest of our lives. he also said that we should make a list of attributes we want in our future spouse someday. i had had enough! not only did i have to think about college but now my future husband someday?!?

alright, presnt time now. im a sophomore. i have my permit. i have a job. i have a boyfriend. i play soccer. and try to maintain good grades. talk about being busy. im hardly ever home and when i am, im doing homework which makes me in a bad mood. i have two and a half years of highschool left. two and a half more years of living at home. if my life was a remote, the fast forward button would be pressed, making my life seem like it's going one hundred miles per hour. how i wish i could still lay under that kitchen table listenning to my daddy read me stories. and that i still had the time to play barbies every single day. i may be getting older, life may seem to be going faster, and i may often appear to be busy, but my imagination hasnt left me. even though my barbies are in the attic and i can no longer fit under the kitchen table, i still sometimes pretend im a princess locked up in a tower surrounded by monsters. i pretend im an orphan living alone on the streets scrounging for scraps of food. no matter how old or busy we get, let us never lose sight of our childhood memories!