But mother I don't want to grow up

This is me right now.

Ok, well I'm not in bed.  And I don't have my pyjamas on.  Or my hair in a blue bow.  This is actually me right now:

BOOBS

(Sorry, I'm wearing a corset - it happens)

But EMOTIONALLY I'm feeling more like that Wendy Darling picture.  This is the last day of me being a teenager.  Tomorrow I hit twenty.  I don't want to be twenty.  I don't want to grow any older and I don't want to grow up.  Why can't we just age backwards?  Or pick an age and stick to it?  

Be so much easier.  

Part of the dread is because I still feel like I'm fifteen.  I know that sounds really silly, but whenever I'm feeling upset and vulnerable I always think I'm fifteen again.  I feel absolutely terrified and childlike.  How can I turn twenty when I still have that mentality?  Twenty is an adult.  And adults don't do weird things like thinking they're fifteen again or wandering off or just regressing back to being a child.  

Recently I've been hit hard with a flood of disappointment which makes me absolutely despise myself.  The fifteen year old in me is screaming out for me to punish myself, but the girl who's nearly twenty is doing her very best to ignore it in the hopes of redemption.  To be honest, I feel like a dirty whore.  But I won't regret anything that happened because it brought me so much happiness.  Maybe it was wrong to be that happy, but it's the happiest I've been in years.  

But everyone leaves.  I'm not being pessimistic.  It's fact.  With me at least.  It's another reason why I'm dreading my birthday.  Because I had made plans.  Nothing major.  Just spending a birthday feeling really whole and happy.  For years birthdays have made me anxious for the social aspect of things, but this year I wasn't worried.  Now, I'm terrified.  

On Facebook I've been the moodiest little so and so ever.  People must be sick of me!!

So, things I do to make me happier.  Dress up.  Read a book (Game of Thrones is proving to be most gripping).  Standing out in the rain.  Talking about Something - anything.  That's about it.  I've taken to praying a lot as well.  During the day as well as first thing in the morning and last thing at night - my prayers aren't the first/last thoughts in my head though.  

Ok, let's try and be more positive.  I keep on punishing myself, but I can't do that if I want to move forwards in life.  My therapist says that I need to compliment myself more.  So here goes:

I'm passionate.  It makes me quite crazy at times, but also fiercely loyal.  It can be problematic at times, true, but you always know where you are with me.  When someone does me wrong, I cut them out of my life - but when that person needs me I come running.  Sure, I might tut disapprovingly and scowl, but you betcha I'd be there.

I believe in my opinions, but I'm always ready to learn something new.  I might not agree with your views but I'm always open to hear them.  

 I try and focus on finding the beauty in people who haven't found it yet within themselves.  

I try to be kind.  Even when I'm furious I do my best to be nice to people.  Sure, it often doesn't work, but I do try.  

I will always put your needs before my own.  Yeah, this can sometimes be a flaw.  

If you hurt someone I love, I will do a Liam Neeson and come after you.  

I love far too easily.  Or maybe I don't actually know what it is yet.  But when you're terrified of your favourite people upping and leaving all the time, you do tend to devote yourself to making them happy.  

So, yeah that's me.  I'm also crazy, insecure, swear like a sailor, paranoid and it takes me quite a while to trust people.  But I'm trying to work on those things.  I'm pushing forwards with my future and trying to live my life.  Yeah, it's scary.  Yeah, I don't want to grow up.  But I also don't want to merely exist in this lifetime.  I want to live.  

“The door', replied Maimie, 'will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me.”

I'm not sure how to start this.  As you can see, this is a bear, a bear who has spent over a decade trapped in a cupboard getting dirty and never played with.  For someone who creates emotions in every object, it is highly unusual that I have neglected this bear so.  But I have.  And I cannot play with this bear now - not just because I'm nearly twenty, but also because just looking at it makes me feel how I first received it all those years ago.

I don't know if anyone else can ever really understand this, but I'll do my best to explain anyway. As a child, my grandparents on my Dad's side were more or less constantly in America visiting my cousins.  Being quite perceptive, I'd noticed favouritism from a very early age - not so much from my Granddad but definitely from my Grandmother.  As a result I was really quite resentful of my cousins - particularly the one closest in age to me who seemed to be the epitome of perfection as a grandchild.  Personally, I couldn't see it, but each to their own.

Anyway, it was unusual for my grandparents trips away to be quite spontaneous and often at the expense of something that I was doing i.e. Birthdays, Christmases, Plays - you get the picture.  Even if I hadn't had much planned, it still would have been nice to see them once in a while.  This particular trip happened during something that I was doing (I have no idea what, but I remember wanting them to be there) and almost as a consolation prize this bear was sent in the post.  Just a normal little bear with I <3 New York on its chest.  Call me over dramatic, but even at that age in my head I added in the tagline 'More than I love Marie'.

I burst into tears.  Mum knew what was up straight away.  She hugged me.  Without me even needing to say my fears, she assured me that they weren't true.  It was from that day onwards that I began to collect other reasons as to why my grandparents didn't love me as much as they loved their other grandchildren.  The main one that kept on rearing its ugly head was the fact that I was a girl and they hadn't wanted a granddaughter - I still believe this, though Mum insists that it is the very fact that I am a girl that I got a look in at all.

So, anyway.  I've packed away the photos of us all in a box.  Maybe one day I'll look at them again.  The pillow that I couldn't sleep without as a child that my Grandmother had made for me will go to Katie, and this little bear will go to you.  I hope that you can cherish it.  I hope that you always stay loved.  But I also hope that you stand up for yourself when you need to - though I can't promise love will still be there if you do.