Bernard, can I borrow your watch?

Getting older...hmmm, I’m not sure I want to be part of that group. Sure the idea of having your own house, a career and a well earned income are all appealing but if getting older means sacrificing time then I’d rather stay twenty please.

When your parents say ‘Enjoy being young whilst you can’ they seriously meant it, but it’s so typical that you don’t realise the truth behind it until it’s too late. This may sound oh so dramatic but since turning seventeen I can honestly say I don’t know where the time has gone! I’m now twenty (soon to be the big 2 1) and I feel as though I’ve been asleep for the last 36 months. So much has happened in that amount of time yet I can vividly remember the days of wondering along the school corridor to my next class, spending Friday nights up the park with a few bottles of vino, and going on spontaneous “let’s go anywhere” drives when each of my friends passed their test as if it were yesterday. Cliché I know, but so true!

The biggest milestone in that three year period was leaving home and moving to Southampton to start university. The amount of nervous, scared and “I don’t want to go” conversations that mum and I had, the tears that were shed as I said the goodbyes and that horrible feeling of wanting to go home are forever sealed in my memory. But can you believe that was all of 9 months ago and tomorrow I am going home for the summer, officially having completed my first year?!

I know, I can’t either!

It just makes you think all that worrying about providing for yourself, making friends and cooking your own dinners was so unnecessary. I’m here, I’ve made it and I’ve come out the other side with some lovely new buddies, a better understanding of budgeting and a few nifty recipes under my belt. There’s also the plus that never again will I have to endure that sickening feeling where the day that you leave home is nearing and all the uncertainty that comes with it. Yes, after having spent four long months at home for the summer, it will be hard leaving again but I know what to expect, I know the routine, I know I have a lovely little flat to come back to with four beautiful girlies and most of all, I know I can actually cope by myself!

Despite all these positives and of course the degree that comes with going to uni and growing older, I still don’t like how you become seemingly stripped of your time of being young, before responsibility sets in. It scares me how quickly the first year has gone and now I am unofficially a second year (can’t believe I can say that now). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining as you can gather I’m very much a home girl so the fact that the academic year has flown by is quite comforting to me. But I am beginning to feel robbed by the clock and the calendar. There’s no need to rush you know, I’m not that eager to give up my 11am lay ins for a 9-5 job just yet!

I guess my point is that although there are benefits that come with each birthday, losing out I’m sure about 5 hours a day just isn’t a good enough exchange! Think of all the summer breaks you had when you were younger, didn’t those six weeks just last forever? Not to mention the decrease in the present pile as you rack up more birthdays! So really what do we gain from growing older? Bills, wrinkles, debt? You blink and you miss. Ooh look I think 2008 just rushed past my window!

My solution. Move house. Move country. Move worlds. Where to? Well you’ll find me in never never land. Who wants to join me?