My life was a little like the movie Big. Except I said I wanted to be a Disney Princess and it was just misinterpreted as “busty lady that sings too much.”

This was because I was a 10-year-old that looked and thought like a miniature 16-year-old by that point. Puberty slapped me in the face very hard and early. Ladies, do you remember having to do the pledge of allegiance after your boobs came in? Yeah, me too. Imagine doing that during the fourth grade and no one else has their boobs yet. It’s a fucking nightmare.

It was a social hassle, for sure. My family would go out to dinner sometimes and I would be offered a drink menu. Like, the waiter would make eye contact with me. My parents would intervene and order a Sprite for me, and I never understood why. I could read. I wanted to have a drink menu and order a Sprite off of it. It did seem redundant to have a separate drink menu when the beverages list is on the regular one…

It’s a strange thing, straddling the divide between childhood and adulthood so early. My body and brain developed so fast that I was observing the process of growing up rather than taking part in it myself. It was like I was the documentarian of a wildlife documentary about humans, taking notes and watching as people my age bloomed slowly.

Most of my observations came from school. When I was in the fourth grade, I was a part of a group of girls that I called my friends. But they weren’t really my friends more than they were girls that just kind of let me hang out near them. During lunches and recess, I would follow these non-friends of mine and listen to their conversations. Though none of them had not gone through puberty slapping yet, they were trying very hard to be adults. Like, imagine a G-rated version of Sex and the City.

Immediately afterward, they would go into science class and try to throw pencils into the ceiling. My assigned seat was away from them, so I never got in trouble for it. Nor did I get hit in the head with a pencil, which was good considering all of the other bullying and school-based trauma I was going through!

My classmates have since gotten married, had babies, work salaried positions. They prepared for adulthood and marriage at an early age, and they got it! Good job! A lot of them love their lives, talk about the joys of watching their kids grow up, their tenth anniversary with Brandon. (At least 68% of the husbands are named Brandon.) But then I also see where they regress a little by going out to bars and getting tequila shots, which is the adult version of throwing pencils at ceiling tiles.

As for me? Well, I’ve had my share of growing up too fast in certain areas of my life. That said, I never really got to have those moments of public pencil throwing. Any childish antics I had were reserved for the privacy of my own home. When you’re a 10-year-old living in a teenager-level body, you’re treated differently. There are expectations placed on you because you look and sound like an adult.

But I feel like my Big transformation has reversed itself, because now my friends are buying wine without being carded, and the cashier sees me and is like, “Where’s your ID?”

Is that a flex? Yes. Yes, it is.