Sort of 23

So I'm sort of 23 now. The age puts me off a little bit but I hang on to the feeling I had 2 months before today - that 22 feels so young. (You see, turning 22 put me off a little bit too, last year.)

When I was 9, I wanted to be 12 right away, so badly. I even told people I was 12 when they asked me. When I woke up to my 12 birth day, I remember writing a happy entry in my flowery diary (since there were no blogs then). I said, "I was finally an adolescent! A teenager!"

I started realizing I did not want to be 15 anymore when I was 15. I wanted to turn back time again and be younger, so much younger.

But my continuous mental development made me realize, it's not the age I wanted to get back to. It was the status I was in when I was 8 or 9 or 10 that I wanted to go back to.

Aside from the fact that my family was so financially blessed during those times, I was always the 'It' girl of the campus. Then somehow, the charm went away when I was 15.

People adored me when I was a kid. And as you know, kids need not exert much effort to be adorable. They just are. Me being so beautiful and talented and smart was just a plus. (I mean, try and resist that!) #SeriouslyImNotKidding

At 15 to 22, I started to hide and deny my age.

Internally, I would always struggle so I ask myself, "Besides fame and money, what did you lose? What happened?"

Innocence? No. That's not it.

I realized, I don't love myself as much as I used to as a kid. I started caring for what other people think too much. I started listening to them.

I'd like to think that somehow, in someways, I am still a kid. I am still greedy and that I still love myself.

I'm a kid trapped in a 23-year-old body.

I still gallop. I still cry watching cartoons. I still find joy in 'alone time' and I still don't like the taste of coffee, beer or wine.

This year and so on, I'm just going to embrace the inner kid in me and enjoy living under this skin.