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I always jump at the chance to dress in festive garb on holidays, like wearing a green felt clover pin on St. Patrick’s Day. I break out my red, heart-covered shirts and hand out pink Hershey’s Kisses taped to children’s Harry Potter Valentine cards on Valentine’s Day. I fill plastic pastel eggs with bunny-shaped chocolates on Easter. Especially, I distribute candy to my friends so I can spread my holiday joy by activating everyone’s sweet tooth.
However, I realize that packaging candy to distribute every holiday is more than a little childish. I have distributed Valentine cards and Halloween candy since preschool, but the idea of expanding the giveaways to other holidays had not popped into my head until I perused the candy-filled shelves of Walgreens during Christmas time in sixth grade. I couldn’t resist snatching up the bell-shaped chocolates and candy canes to hand out in addition to my traditional Christmas presents. When I entered high school though, I noticed that no one else celebrated holidays as fervently as I did. As I handed a friend an Easter egg this past April, she commented, “Wow, no one has done this for me since I was five.” The comment was meant to be a compliment on my kindness, but it also reaffirmed my high school resolution to end the tradition before I ended up dressed as Santa Claus slipping Christmas cards and candy canes under the doors in my college dorm. It would be just plain weird to hand out candy on holidays as an adult. Who wants to be the creepy candy-giving coworker who never quite grew up?
Therefore, I celebrated my last candy-giving holiday on April 22 of my senior year, when I offered organic, fair trade chocolate drops to my friends in celebration of Earth Day. I will miss these holiday giveaways, but I don’t want to be the only one handing out Happy Bunny Valentine cards on my way to a job interview.
Ending my candy cane tradition is only one of the changes that I will have to face in the transition from high school to college. Since it is also the transition from childhood to adulthood, my entire lifestyle will need adjustment. I will have to do my own laundry, pay bills, learn how to cook and even maintain a job, which will be challenging because my friends always say, “Sharon, you are one of the most childish people that I know”. My favorite colors are pink and baby blue, I am incredibly dependent on my parents and I love to bedazzle everything I own — my friends from middle school all agree that I haven’t changed at all.
I know the writing is on the wall. I embrace being a kid, though. Childhood is the liveliest time of a person’s life, if not the best. I sometimes wish that Neverland from Peter Pan was on my horizon instead of droning research papers and frustrating taxes. Clearly, this is not the first time that I am hiding from the looming “grownup!” monster. I dread every birthday because it means that I am getting older, even if just by one year. Usually, such anxiety signals a midlife crisis, but I stopped looking forward to birthdays when I was shocked at being called a “teenager”.
Will college be different? I remind myself that most people are hesitant towards change at first. And I also know that I have survived life’s rollercoaster so far, so I will probably get used to college after sticking it out for a month or two. I am actually looking forward to living independently, even if not in Neverland, and developing as a person. College will probably turn out to be better than I think, despite the absence of Sweethearts and candy corn. |
