I'm going to be a senior this year. A senior. The word hits me with some finality and a dash of foreboding to go with it. There's nothing forced after this. It's the step and final piece that will fall in to place that I've hungered for ever since I got my hands on my mother's high school yearbooks. When I was told they would be teh best years of my life, I looked forward to them with a sincerity that could match nothing else.

As the thought hits me about being a senior, I look around my room. It doesn't hit me as being very senior-ish. The wallpaper is a pink polka-dot, lined with a border of kittens, puppies, and bows in various shades of the pastel rainbow. My latticed furniture I could never get rid of, and I've always thought about the way it would look in my daughter's room, even if it *is* many years in the future.

My eyes finally settle on my doors. They're covered with posters and pictures. Every inch. Each door is a giant mural -- if you take one off, they all come off. It finally hits me that I realize -- and have for awhile now -- that I'm not going to "grow up" and marry any of these young men as I have planned to do so since I was ten.

My hand reaches out to touch a few of them, and I remember the first pictures I put up, at the very top. These need to come down sometime, I think. Either now or never.

Sure, it'll hurt. The door will be so white, it'll look like it belongs in a mental hospital. But I want my room to look more grown up, right? I mean, after all, I'm thisclose to being a legal adult.

My nails slide through a few pieces of tape and the pictures curl over, starting to fall.

Starting to fall.

Falling.

Tears come to my eyes as I realize what I'm doing, and I hastily try to repair the damage. When I'm holding it back in its proper place, the world feels right again, but it feels as though I've stabbed my best friend in the back, and have pulled back for the blow that would finish them off before I realize what I'm doing.

I slowly peel a fraction of a piece of tape off the door and try to stick it back on. My attempts to patch up my mistake are useless. The tape won't stick.

I look down to see if anything's wrong with it when it hits me.

The piece of tape is seven years old. More than a third of my life and almost half of it.

My eyes meet the ones on on the poster I assaulted, and I'm shocked. For the past seven years, these are the people I've shared my heart with. The ones who I dreamed about every night. The ones who I pretended were holding me as I fell asleep. The ones who embody and have shaped the characteristics and traits that I look for in guys.

These are the people who I've cried over, laughed over, gossiped about, daydreamed about, and just plain shared my life with for the past seven years.

Seven years is a long time. Some marriages don't even last that long.

My stomach hurts when I think about them. My chest aches, and I want to cry.

But I don't. Taking the posters down would mean growing up and leaving them behind. Maybe I'm not was ready to be an adult as I thought. I'm not.

Being a full adult would mean that . . . Well, I don't know what it would mean, because I haven't had the experience yet. But I'm not ready for it.

I still want to be thought of as a child. No, a young adult. That's comfortable. It fits. Not yet an adult but not a kid, either. That's very comfortable. I'm not ready to be a senior, but not quite ready to grow up.

I step back and look into each of the pictures' eyes, and think about the way they look. Some are smiling, giving an encouraging look, or being just plain serious.

I realize that my lips have curved upward into a smile. It's comforting to know that they're still there. Yes, they're still there.

They're still there and I'm not ready to take them down just yet.

Maybe next year, I think, and I step out of my room in search of some scotch tape.

Author's Note: As you can see, I wrote this in mid-June, right after my Junior year had ended. My senior year began on September 3rd, 2003, almost three months later.