When the body grows, does the heart try to keep up?

Instead of saying, “I don’t want to grow up,” how many relationships do you reckon we could’ve salvaged had we said, “I am comfortable in this space that we’ve built, you bring out the best in me and losing you is a scary thought.” When we use biology to explain, it makes sense. When we hint at the need to validate our emotions, it’s called not acting your age.

There was a time where I wanted to be independent. And then I was bestowed with autonomy and interconnected choices and since then all I wanted to hear was that I’m good, my heart is spaceful, they will remember me for the kind presence that I was.

Picture this:
1. Your favourite pair of jeans that increases in waist size with you until one day it decides not to.
2. Shoes that don’t fit anymore.
3. Your favourite bra that now only leaves marks between your skin folds.

Now picture this:
1. Shoulders you used to embrace at your campus gate before a 7am class, but today you barely recognise under the weight of the world. Or a nearly broken marriage.
2. Faces that used to flood your phone gallery, but as far as you remember, the last time you saw was at your work colleague’s wedding a year back.
3. Lack of days where you allow yourselves to miss a deadline.
4. Lack of sleep.
5. Lack of sleep on those days.
6. It’s no longer nights where you clink your glass of iced tea against their beer bottles as you dream about moving to the capital that give you the illusion of significance, but monthly pay slips and a promise of frequent flyer miles that make your heart pound against your ribcage.
7. The capacity to feel, and wishing yours didn’t shrink.

What they tend to forget is that,
— you don’t miss dead independent people.

Prompt: Growing up

Originally published at wordbiting.wordpress.com on September 3, 2018.