I don't think I will ever grow up if I'm perfectly honest. That's what I should start saying from now on. With time, my knowledge of the world may deepen, my tongue may sharpen and I may have all the grown-up friends in the world but I think it is time that I stop trying and just accept that I will always be that girl who gets distracted from an important conversation by a leafy gust of wind outside, would watch Beauty and the Beast a hundred times if she could and no matter how hard she tries, always has to stifle her laughter at the mass of hair that protrudes from her lecturers nose (it really is spectacular). So yes, it is rather pathetic - and the would-be grown-up within me reminds me of it all the time -  but perhaps I’m too conscious of it and I should just, dare I say it, go with the flow.

I've just started back at university. With any luck I should be graduating with a masters degree at the end of the year. A daunting prospect. So before I started back, I gave myself the usual pep-talk: "Right, this year you will pull it together - academically and personally. You will keep track of all your course work and you will spend less time blurting out whatever mush is running through your head and more time thinking before you speak."(Honestly, its amazing how intelligent an idea can seem in your head until you actually hear yourself say it, and then of course its too late - you have to sit there, toes curling with shame as you watch your peers digest it.) The problem is, I have given my self this mini-lecture for the last three years and yet here I am repeating it word for word again. It never works - two weeks into the term and I'm constantly telling myself off for my behaviour.

And what has brought on this train of thought? Well, a couple of days ago I had a bit of an argument with someone close to me and at some point in its duration, the phrases 'so naive' and 'need to grow up' were hurled at me. Its one thing telling yourself these things from time to time, but when they come from someone you love, someone that you would usually turn to for reassurance, it hits with jaw-dislocating force. The latter of those accusations, I am owning up to, as you can see. The former however, I will deny. I think people throw that word around because they think it sounds good. Yes, I can be annoyingly childish at times and I daydream far too much, but I'm not naive. I can read people well enough and I'm very aware of my actions (although it seems at times just a millisecond too late.)

We have sorted our problem, its all fine and dandy now, but those words are still with me. So I suppose this little piece is just an acknowledgment that yes, I am a big kid at times, and a lot of what I say does make people wonder how I ever got into higher education. But I'm okay with  that. I'm still standing and I'm only twenty after all so I'm sure something will fall into place one day.

And again, if I'm perfectly honest, maybe I don't want to grow up. Not completely anyway.