You and I? We’re so fucking mature! We have real world problems like whether or not we should drag our asses off our Ikea couches and buy a sandwich at the falafel place down the block. Whether or not we should subscribe to Netflix or OkCupid! Whether or not we should go to a bar on a Wednesday night! It all feels so encompassing, this real adult world, and because of it I have ABANDONED MY CHILD(HOOD). I am a grown-up, the sixteen year old in my withered up and dead, if that were a thing that is possible. Listen, you non-Peter Pans- there are plenty of things I am glad to leave behind in the child world. However, for the sake of all of our sanity, there are plenty of things we should still continue to do in our old and growing ages that we also did as kids. I think it makes our skin look better. Here are some of the things you shouldn’t let go at any age (and many I still do and know you do, too): 

1. Girl’s nights. I’m talking about sleepovers, people. All you need are 36 bags of Salt and Vinegar chips, Fritos, the kind of onion dip that comes in a tuna can, nail polish that is ‘2001’ blue, and three stupidly terrible movies with a) montages b) danceable soundtracks. You grab your best girlfriends and you gossip about things and you talk about boys and you eat entire bags of chocolate. This is not the night you squeeze into little dresses and wear heels and put your breasts out. You’re not going out to hit on guys that work in ‘investment firms,’ you’re eating nachos that have burned and you’re watching America’s Next Top Model. Sure, you need to bring 8 bottles of wine to freebase but still, it’s all about your ladies and wearing no makeup and putting on face masks even though it burns so bad.
2. Watching Disney Movies and tearing up and singing along to those songs and wanting to be a specific princess, for some it’s Jasmine but for me it’s MULAN.
3. Getting excited MOMENTARILY for the snow. Stepping into a pile of fresh leaves. Eating a popsicle on your stoop. Anything that lets you enjoy the changing of a new seasons in any other way that’s not ‘oh damnnnnn it’s Monday again my life is so full of MONDAYS.’
4. Thinking about the Zombie Apocalypse and have a plan to survive like finding all the hot guys in zombie shows and traveling with him also SWORDS
5. Having crushes on teen actors like that kid Evan in American Horror Story and some shitty kid from Glee or Peeta in The Hunger Games.
6. Burying yourself under warm blankets and keeping the monsters away
7. Writing on your hands with pen (no pen 15 club, though. COME ON GROW UP)
8. Wearing stupidly puffy skirts or mismatched socks or bows in your hair. When I was ten, I wore flowered leggings and big hats and bright jewelry. News flash: that’s COOL NOW. I’m trying a reverse kind of trend, here. With even MORE bedazzling.
9. Baking cupcakes for no reason at all.
10. Still knowing all the words to Fresh Prince theme song and singing them all the time whenever somebody starts, maybe half to Slim Shady. Still scream both.
11. Piggyback rides—the kind of run and jump on a street corner that probably knocks both of you on the ground and scraping your knees on the pavement.
12. Requesting the piece of cake ‘with the most frosting’
13. Do me a favor and go put on *NSync on in your room and TRY NOT to dance in your pajamas with a hairbrush as a microphone. If you do not do this, you are barely a human and are some terrifying robot that needs to be Skynetted out of this earth
14. Do me another favor and GO PLAY MASH with a bunch of your friends and watch everybody dissolve into a pile of nostalgic screams
15. Never stop giggling over a celebrity. Sure, you might not put a poster over your bedroom wall, but do not look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a cop uniform for Batman and prevent yourself from blushing and swooning.
16. Celebrating people’s birthdays where you obnoxiously sing ‘happy birthday’ really loud and somebody goes ‘and many mooooooore.’ Also, there’s nothing wrong with making a homemade card.
17. Inside jokes that nobody gets and nobody really wants to hear about and code names for guys you’re digging are still the universal code of talking 
18. Going to a party somewhere and making some stupid soda alcohol concoction to take with you. Sure, people drink pink Dasani water on the subway, right?
19. Board games. I played Jenga this weekend and I haven’t felt such an upsetting jolt of reality in forever. Do people live in the Jenga apartment complex? Am I knocking down there house? Either way, it’s still totally cool to be a sore loser.
20. Getting the pure joy of eating ice cream at an inappropriate time, LIKE FOR DINNER. I’m not even a big ice cream person because I’d rather have fries, but I understand the angel kisses of noshing ice cream really late at night and being like ‘oh shit, I shouldn’t be doing this, I’m such a naaauggghttty girl.’ And then you know, not calling yourself a naughty girl ever again.
21. Whenever your friend gets dumped, all you gotta do is play “No Scrubs” to them and be like “you deserve soooo much better” even though this technique has never worked in the history of mankind ever, but at least you get to dance to TLC and eat Cheez-its.
22. Spending a Saturday afternoon in your pajamas and watching television because ‘you don’t have any homework’ today
23. Trying to learn the dance to your favorite song, and if that’s still ‘Baby One More Time’ so fucking BE IT
24. I present this without comment for you to have maybe some fun with later
25. Flossing before bed or your parents would scream at you in your jim jams until you learned a thing or two about personal hygiene. 
26. Stare at the Barbie section in Target and kind of decide if you had the money you would have all of the Barbies and also the GI Joes in your house in a small room to play with when you’re really drunk, because as a kid you thought that they would be better men for Ken than Barbie.
27. Same goes with American Girl Dolls: THEY HAVE SO MUCH HISTORY AND SO DO I WITH THEM
28. Vomit all over your yearbook and look at all the gel pen messages in it
29. Cuddle up with one of your parents or your childhood dogs
30. Wear Converse sneakers
31. Dream about maybe what wedding dress you would wear if you didn’t think that wedding shows were so annoying it made you help all things that were mushy except maybe pudding and it’s not like I need to get married it’s just that the dresses and the booze are nice
32. Get pimples and have to sit on your hands all night so you won’t pop them, then pop them and scream at the world
33. Whining to your mother when you have a cold and want pity from everybody around you and eat the really sodium-heavy Campbell’s soup with noodles
34. Have a good old fashioned crush. I’m talking butterflies in the stomach, want to talk to your friends about it, blushing gushing gross kind of crush. Don’t give a shit if it doesn’t work out (oooh i hope it does LOLOLOLLOL), because it’s the wonderful feeling like a gangly idiot that can’t stop grinning all over the place! These are the best!
35. When you have REAL feelings, you can only listen to the songs that you listened to as a teenager to cheer you up. One time, I had a big crush on this dude so I had to listen to “BEAUTIFUL DISASTER” by Kelly Clarkson on my CD player and now I did that once when I was bummed and had to shun myself into oblivion for being such a weird person who felt that about anybody. It’s a real humbling experience!
36. Putting your hair in that stupid bun on top of your head and walking around your apartment like that
37. Enjoying your summers!!!!! SUMMER 20K10 or whatever
38. Live like everything is a big deal, because everything in your special little life is kinda cool.