When I was younger everything was more entertaining.  Lolly pops weren’t suckers but action hero’s waiting for their caps to be pulled of their head.  Being in the car was like having a million leaf like fans rush by as you scream a the top of your lungs to the outdated song on the radio, they never failed to whistle and cheer you on like family members where known to do.

Suddenly, cruelly, I got thrown into puberty and the only reason to eat suckers was to frustrate your parents before going to the dentist.  It was an easy button to press. Car rides where small annoyances because they never let you drive and they never turned off that same outdated song.  Of course now it was constantly echoed by huffs and puffs.  

The one thing, no matter how emotional or distant I got, that I never expected to change where holidays.  Family members getting together always felt like a bad idea but when the food or the presents started rolling in it didn’t matter anymore.  

Christmas time I still got my Santa presents even though I’d known about him sense second grade when I was teased until I cried for believing in him in the first place.  Parent’s still tell their children these lies as if it’s a big joke; I guess they can’t remember their first time to find out.

I had yet to stop dressing up and going trick or treating.  I always had the best costume anyway, and no age should ever resist free candy.

Even Thanksgiving was the same except for the ten pounds I become aware of that was expected for the season.  

I still got flowers for Valentines Day, and candy.  

So of course Easter came as a shock to me.  It was three o’clock at night and they had already put my gift in my room.  I expected my same basket filled with the best candy and that fake grass.  I was 17 and I had still looked forward to my basket all month.  But when I woke up I didn’t find a stuffed bunny looking up at me.  That’s when you hope maybe a little chick was there in it’s place with at least some mildly good candy and perhaps a not so good looking color of grass.  Something to ease me into this.  No, I didn’t get my basket, my glorious basket.  I got, instead, the most expensive chocolate in a small bunny shaped container.  

I went to the bathroom to wash my face and the tears started swelling in my eyes.  As they did my eyes began to burn, harshly.  It felt like I hadn’t had water in my eyes in years and suddenly instead of water, vinegar was there in its place.

It was three o’clock in the morning and I, a 17 year old, the one who wanted to grow up and be independent, sat and cried over the lack of my magnificent basket.  There were people who didn’t get anything at all, some people got beaten every night including Easter night, some people didn’t even celebrate Easter, and here I was crying because I didn’t get my basket.  But what was I supposed to do?  I couldn’t show my parents I was crying over this, the candy was probably more expensive then any basket I had ever been given, and if I was supposed to be grown up I’d have to except this and stop crying.  I didn’t look at the gift.  I didn’t think about the gift.  I certainly didn’t eat the gift.  It was three o’clock in the morning and I was all alone with my gift.  

I sat myself down in front of it and thanked Jesus for it and counted.  Eight pieces of candy inside.  This was what I got for being grown up.  This was my rude awakening into reality.  I was expected to love this gift, to jump at the site of it, and thank them.  I took my uncouth beginning into adulthood gracefully but I did not jump at the site of it and I did not love it, I did however thank them for it.  This is what I got for being grown up.