“If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I won't grow up, never grow up, never grow up, not me. ”
― Peter Pan and the Lost Boys

Sometimes I just want life to slow down. I wake up daily with my schedule already set out for me as the demands of my day create an impounding stress. I am reminded by the copious amounts of meetings and exams that I am NOT a child anymore. I think the realization hit me hardest on Halloween. After work I didn't feel like dressing up or really doing much of anything. This marked the first year in my young life that I did not dress up for Halloween. What had become of me? It was as if I was slowly being stripped of my childhood with every holiday tradition that I decided to fore-go. But right when I was about to accept my imminent adulthood, my roommates came up with the most beautiful of all Halloween plans.

Our friends Clay and Jesse, along with a fine amount of nails, string and bed sheets constructed a haven in the middle of our living room. Don't be deceived, this was not your average fort. We compiled all our pillows, blankets, down comforters, and memory foam pads to create a colossal child's dream fort. Once we were finished and the boys left, we stared proudly at our creation and then dove in like children about to have their first sleepover.

The fort reminded me of being a little girl and building forts with my brothers on their bunk beds. The forts were never just bunk beds draped with sheets, but they were pirate ships, caves, spaceships and time machines. Our innocence was thriving and our brains weren't on making love or making war but strictly on making believe. The only deadlines we had were to clean up the fort by dinner and the only demand on us was to eat all of our vegetables. Life was simple and life was safe.


I was beginning to believe a voice in my head that told me that being 20 years old meant I didn't qualify for the fun parts of life anymore. But I found that you are never too old to build forts, in fact sometimes you NEED to build a fort.
Sure, we weren't making believe (it seems that some things you just can't get back) But there was that familiar sense for a few hours that life was simple and life was safe as long as we were under those sheets.