To all those times when I was younger and just wanted to grow up already.

How You Know You’re a Grown-Up:

• When you hate the snow and all that it means for your job, your house and your food supply.
• When you have to choose a pencil skirt over a romper.
• When you have to cook at home because 1) you are sticking to a budget and 2) because you are too tired to face anything but pajamas and a couch by the time you get out of work. 
• When you look forward to vacations maybe once or twice a year instead of  as a 3-month stretch of summer. 
• When you finally, really understand what Mom & Dad meant when they said, “We’ll have to wait until payday.” 
• When you are shocked by what preteens are wearing to go the mall. 
• When you classify “failures” as personal short-comings instead of using it as a name-calling device (“you’re such a failure!) or as a grading mechanism (“this paper was a dismal failure.”) But, this only truly qualifies if you then examine those failures as areas for growth instead of as angsty pools of self-loathing.
• When you realize that your mere existence does not qualify you to earn respect or recognition. 
• When you accept that jealousy is pointless and self-destructive.
• When you learn that channeling such jealousy into inspiration is pretty darn effective.
• When you see that, all along, your sibling has been your best friend and you really don’t need anyone else except for him/her.
• When you publicly take ownership of your decisions, good and bad, without excuses and without lies and cover-ups.
• When buying presents at Christmas becomes a lot more fun than receiving them.
• When you start to question celebrating Christmas at all! (i.e. Let’s go skiing instead!) 
• When you notice that the more that people say they can’t stand “popularity contests,” the more they are secretly trying to win them.

Some of this stuff I know firsthand (hello, Christmas drama and pencil skirts!) and some I’m still learning or trying to learn or hoping to learn. Being a “grown-up” has its perks (no bedtime!), but also its downsides (actually needing 8 hours of sleep).

Time to open up the floor!! :) Be honest! Write the first thing that comes to your mind.

So, what do you think?