Sweet Sixteen

Age 6

In four days, I will be sixteen years old. Uhm, yikes. As you may remember, or will come to find out, turning sixteen is an enormous turning point in everyone’s life. New obligations, responsibilities, receiving a driver’s license, taking AP classes, pressures to get a job and to start searching for a college. That’s plenty to get my parent’s freaked. Most teenagers look at their sixteenth birthday as this thrilling and  exciting day they’ve awaited for years; they’re finally being taken a bit more seriously, they’re being considered young adults rather than children. But I was raised in Neverland, where growing up never existed; it never truly occurred to me that it would actually happen one day. Until recently when I looked myself in the mirror and thought, does this mean I have to grow up? I thought that growing up meant leaving Neverland behind and forgetting about all the magic that waited there. I was honestly scared of growing up, I didn’t want to forget; I always want to be able to say that I believe in fairies and magic. That I believed in Disney. But then I remembered one of my favorite Peter Pan quotes from the book by J.M. Barrie. Peter says this to Wendy just before he returns to Neverland, this time without her.

“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”

Just because we grow up, doesn’t mean the magic does. No matter how old or young, or how far away we’ve fallen, that wonder and that magic we all knew and fully believed in, it never really goes away. It stays with us through our lives, just waiting for us to remember. Waiting for us to come back to Neverland. And as for me, I don’t think I ever plan to leave.

Age 16

Fly again soon. (As a 16 year old!)

~ Mimi <3 ^-^