But I don't wanna be a grown up!

Getting my first job back in the UK was one of the best things that happened to me last year. Being chosen and feeling like I'd earned a place within a company was the best thing for my self esteem and also took away the stress of job hunting. Seriously, the Gregg's test was one of the hardest things I could have put my mind through - I just couldn't get it right. But thinking purely with my belly, I applied for every position that became available. But to no avail.

It took me 6 months to eventually get a job and when they (not Greggs) rang me up and said that they wanted to offer me a position, it was a massive relief. 

Since then, I've felt like the experience in retail has set me up. I have now managed to get another job which had me selling sandwiches in corporate offices. 

I was so glad to have the experience and the money I've saved will help me a lot with paying my way through accommodation at uni. But every job I have, makes me lose my childhood. Every new qualification that I get deletes the last. Who really cares what I got at GCSE now? Every new job makes me more into an adult.

When I was younger, all I could think about was growing up. I wanted to be a zoo keeper. I wanted to skip all the education and just get myself into a zoo feeding elephants their breakfasts and making toys for monkeys. 

But then, I began to realise that the older you get, the less holiday you have and, suddenly, I didn't want to be an adult anymore. Since then, I found every reason and more for not wanting to grow up. 

There's something about the mind of children that just mesmerizes me. I don't know how anyone creates stories like that. Save for all the toilet training, nose picking and burping, I reckon that when we're children, we are actually in our prime. 

But there are still those adults who are shy or who are extra specially polite and still go red when you speak to them. 

Speaking to people who work in law firms, you seem incredibly young. But there was this one man who usually comes to buy a sandwich and he's always very polite. So much so that I think of him as a growing child. 

And, in that moment, just this morning, I realised that you don't have to every grow up, if you don't want to. You can mature, learn table manners and grow up in that sense, but you never have to lose that childhood imagination. 

How I learned to love to be single

For all my life, in terms of relationships, it's just been me, myself and I. I just fancied writing about something that, maybe, everyone feels like they have to do. I know that I've felt slightly abnormal because I haven't followed the 'conventions of teenage-hood', as it were. But I guess I haven't found the right person. In fact, the more and more I think about it, it seems like I might be happier, single. I don't want this post to later be hypocritical. What I write today is jut how I feel now. (Also, this is aimed at no one in particular, but just my general experience :D) 

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Growing up, I think much of my school life revolved around who was going out with who. It was like trivia: Guess who's going out with ___?!" 

It was always quite exciting to find out but more so to see how long people could keep the girlfriend and boyfriend status up. 

As we moved from little year 7s to year 10s and 11s, relationships began to last longer than a matter of weeks that you could count on your right hand. 

Love was now real. 

I wasn't ready for a boyfriend in year 7. In fact, I was still playing with Barbie's when I got home after school. But, low and behold, that was the last time I ever had a 'boyfriend'. I say boyfriend like this because, even thought we said we were on a relationship, we most probably weren't. 

I hated being social outside of school and so cinema dates and going to each others houses was a no-go. We simply saw each other in school. But even then, it wasn't love so much as it was experimental. 

But still, for all my false delusions about love, I still wanted to have someone. 

Every new school year I thought: this will be it. But every year I ended, I was still single.

It was finally at university when I realised how important it was to have your own time. I saw people every day. When I cooked dinner. I heard them as I went to bed. I bumped into everyone, everywhere. 

Though the social side of things has really helped me and is something that I really love about uni, I did still need my free time. 

I found a few spare moments to blog. But I hardly ever had time to read for pleasure nor work on writing stories. There was always something to be done and if I rejected social meetings in order to spend time with me, myself and I on a hobby, I felt anti-social.

I missed the time I had to myself. To do nothing or, conversely, work on something extra-ordinary. 

I also began to work out that being in love with someone was an incredibly emotional and time-consuming thing! (It also ate most of your credit and got you to watch films that you wouldn't normally watch, with food that you wouldn't normally have bought). 

Having a boyfriend was all-encompassing. You had to think for not only 1 person but 2. 

Maybe that's because I'm selfish in that respect, or maybe because I just don't know enough but there are some things I love about being un-romantically-attached. 

- I can eat what I want by the call of my stomach 

- I spend more time with my friends 

- I can get a cheap phone tariff 

- I can choose to see family or go on trips at the drop of a hat 

- I can spend more money on my family's presents at Christmas 

- it's ok to spend all my holiday in Dubai 

Maybe things will change as I get older, but sometimes there are people who ask: 'is there anyone you like?' Or who say: 'He'd be good boyfriend material.' But to both statements I would have to answer 'no' and 'maybe' and as for why: 'because I just like it this way.'