If you can grow up, can you grow down?

I'm turning fifteen next Sunday, on the 19th. This is my last week of being a fourteen year old. Period.
I've been feeling quite sentimental about my childhood lately. When your fourteen, your considered a child; at the movies; admission to the zoo. Now, all of sudden, I am going to be paying adult prices. Adult!

I don't particularly want to grow up. All the responsibility; all your comfort being self-made. Who wants to be totally self-reliant? Bills, rent, and mortgages. Taxes and food shopping. Jobs. It doesn't sound appealing. This birthday seems to be the bridge between adulthood and childhood. When you're 13 and 14 you may feel like a teenager, but you aren't really, but when you're 15, it seems so grown up. So different, like a complete other phase. I mean, you can get your learners!

I know there's only one cure for growing older. The future will happen and time won't stop. You know what those hippies were saying might just be right: the only constant is change. With change, however, comes loss, and new things. New and unknown. You have to understand my apprehension: fear is the unknown, right?

I think that my reluctance to grow up isn't helped by my little brother. He is in year 2, and seeing the whole process of growing up has made me get nostalgic about my primary school years. I believe that it is perfectly natural to want to hold on to something that you know is slipping away. That sentence sounds more depressing than I intended, but the main point remains the same. I don't feel like like I'm ready to be an adult. But I have to realise that I am not suddenly going to be thrust into an office job and made to drink copious amounts of coffee just because my age changes. Everyday I grow older, right?

For every door that closes, another on opens. Sometimes I get really excited about life. Just imagine all the things that I am going to do in my life! The places I am going to see; the people I am going to meet; the things I am going to learn. It's logical to have some sadness related to growing up and changing, but it's illogical to try and do something about it- there is nothing you can do.

With this excitement also comes pure terror. Yesterday I was looking at old photo albums with my grandma and mum. It was of her during her teenage years. Like always, the concept of photos confounded me. And also, really thinking about the past. I was just thinking the thought when my mum put it into words, 'one day you'll be looking at photos of yourself with your children', she said. That really scared me.
I asked her if she was scared that it was 'all over'. She replied that she didn't have regrets, and that she is content with her memories because they were happy times, and she lived life to the full.
Noted. I'm not going to let anything pass me by.

Each phase is special in its own way. Each decade each year; every moment makes you who you are. You're constantly improving yourself; growing. I think about one year ago, when I was in year 9. Even that seems like so long ago, and that I was so young. I think about all that I have learnt in that year. Not only in school, but about life in general. It makes me want to learn more. Imagine what I'll know when I am an adult.

15. That's not so bad. And to soften the blow, I even get some cake.
5475 years young.