How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat/ Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.

Don't wonder why people go crazy... wonder why they don't. In the face of all we can lose in a day, in an instant, wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together. -- Grey's Anatomy

You think at 18 you know everything.

I was at a debut the other day, this lovely little girl who I watched grow up is now 18, and I could see in her all the loveliness there is still to be had. She was cautious and nervous yet excited and happy all at the same time. To be especially corny, she's not a girl anymore, but she's not a woman. Yet. She was beyond lovely and I was thrilled to be one of her candles.

Yeah yeah, I'm corny.

Probably in the same way I love coming-of-age films, I love coming-of-age rituals like these. Perhaps because in my own way, I realise, I still have a lot of coming-of-aging (yeah yeah its a new word :P) to do.

You know, when I was 18, I thought I knew absolutely everything.

And it was only recently that I came to terms with the fact that for all my bravado and all the, lets call it uh, experiences, I went through, when I was 18, for all the fun, for all the aches..I knew absolutely nothing at all.

But I didn't know that then.

When I see the younger generation rush rush rush to grow up, by swearing, by engaging in promiscuity, underaged drinking, so on and so forth, I just want to make them pause. Too much, too fast, oh too soon.

TV and movies lie, children. Thats not what growing up is about.

But I won't tell you now.

You wouldn't listen to me anyway.

You'll just have to learn the hard way.

And despite the bumpiness and the consequences and what you wake up to the next day and the disapproval and the and the "I TOLD YOU SO" and 'mistakes'...

wow, is the hard way fun sometimes.