21 soon.

Scrapes make little girls cry.

Sometimes girls cry for no reason at all, and sometimes they do for every reason, but they don't tell you so you just have to let them. Thank you for letting me cry on your knee today without asking me why, what, who, when, without asking me to explain everything, explain everything, explain everything. It's so tiring to have to explain everything. Thank you for not making me have to explain everything.

How do I begin to tell you how terribly frightening all this is to me, this growing up to become that terrifyingly awe-inspiring thing called a Woman, that knows, does, loves everything. How do I begin to tell you how terribly awkward this is for me, perhaps worse than sticking through a bad-acne-frazzled-hair-and-no-one-invited-me-to-that-cool-party pubescent period. How do I begin to tell you that since the happy childhood ended, I purposefully grew myself up and now, I'm just a peculiar mix of grown-up and little-kid that can't decide which direction is better to grow into.

How do I tell you. That I don't know anything about anything, and nothing about everything.

Too many things happened today. And it wrenched my heart so.

Too many question marks in places that should have answers. Too many empty spaces in places that ought to be filled. People looking for me seeking advice, love and inspiration, and me finding myself increasingly inadequate, small, awkward. They are seeing me as if I am a grown-up, an adult, a Big Responsible Person with Answers and Direction and Purpose in Life, a thing they call a Woman.

And I am but a child, forced to age because of a certain experience, now in a young Woman's body, unpolished, roughened and awkward.

She can travel independently on solo trips to developing countries but can't drive a car in her neighbourhood. She can raise funds for orphanages and projects but she can't earn a cent. She's a medical student, supposedly intelligent, but hasn't a clue about financial management. She's read much about psychology, counselling etc, but struggles with coping with her own emotions day to day. She is the person people turn to for advice regarding their relationship problems, but she's never been in one herself. One part is growing up too fast, knows too much, loves too hard; the other part can't drive, earn a salary, read a map. One part loves too hard, too many; the other doesn't know how.

You think she's matured because she doesn't club, drink, smoke, or engage in the emo-decadent things young people do; you think she's matured because she talks like she is; you think she's all grown-up because she seems to be so. But you don't know, you don't know nothing. What if she's grown up too fast, too soon in some ways, and not grown up at all in others? Have you seen those old, wrinkled aunties in their fifties on the streets wearing tight-fitting, lycra clothes, black fishnet stockings, gaudy gold jewellery with make-up caked onto their faces in inches? Have they grown up backwards? Or in two directions?

She doesn't know why she cried today. She was facilitating a meeting she organised, a very grown-up Responsible thing to do. Then she needed a knee, a scrapeless knee, just to lean on and cry on for a while, like the way a little child throws himself onto Mommy's lap.

Can a person grow up backwards. Or in two directions.

Why did nobody warn me.

This girl needs someone to take her on a carousel ride on a white unicorn, take her for a spin at night for an ice-cream cone through a Mac Donald's drive-through, go swimming in floats, or play on the slide, over and over and over again.

Can I buy some time, please?