When I grow up
I will be smart enough to answer all
the questions that you need to know
the answers to before you’re grown up.
When I was little, all I wanted to do was grow up. I had BIG plans. I wasn’t interested in travelling or inventing anything, I just wanted a nice house in the countryside, a husband and two children. Well, I wanted to be a QC as well – I read Law at university with ambitions to be a top barrister (a la Mark Darcy) and become one of the country’s youngest QCs.
But, then when I was 19 and in my second year of university, everything changed. I became ill. Now, I had been ill at school but not in the same way. When you’re 14 and you stop eating nobody notices and ‘it’s just a phase’ but when you faint in a lecture and during an important exam, suddenly it’s a big deal and your boyfriend calls your mother.
Suddenly growing up was the least of my worries – I did not want to grow up. Growing up meant I would have to get a job and fend for myself. I couldn’t do that, I was useless. I had a boyfriend who loved me, but drank too much and was abusive, friends I never saw and a family I didn’t really get on with. So I stopped eating. Well, actually my friend and I competed to see who could lose the most weight by the end of the semester. I won and stayed in university. She dropped out.
I sorted myself out, changed to a history and Spanish degree, spent a year in Spain, graduated with a 1st in History and ditched the abusive boyfriend.
Things started to improve…
Yet now the end of 2014 is approaching and I feel like growing up is the least of my worries.
I’ve not got a full-time job and I’m single.
So I could:
a) Be really miserable (a la Bridget Jones) and gorge myself on Ben and Jerry’s
b) Increase my freelance work and enhance my portfolio while I job hunt
c) Stop serial dating, sit back and relax
So I choose b and c. Which, I think, makes me a grown-up. Mostly.
My Stage is the World 