Growing up... it's a witch.

I'm 23 years old, and here I am, terrified to be leaving home. Oddly enough, I'm not even leaving the city, my parents are, and I'm staying here to figure out what to do with my life.
Why is life so confusing? You know how in some movies they have some kind of system where the children are born and immediately assigned a position in society? It's always portrayed as wrong, that everyone should be able to choose what they want to do for themselves. I would have agreed a few years ago, but now, I see where they're coming from. I'm so confused as to what to do with my life that I'd happily volunteer to be told exactly what to do.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" I feel like that question still applies to me, when in reality people are already asking me things like "So, what are you studying to become?" What? I'm already supposed to have decided that? I don't even know what I'm eating for breakfast, though I can tell you, it's most likely going to be a string cheese and and some gold fish crackers because I can hardly get out of the house on time to get to my job a half a mile away as it is. So, yeah, when you ask me what I'm doing with my life, is it any wonder I'm overwhelmed?
There's a pile of stuff in the corner of my room. Things that I'm going to be bringing to my sister's house. I'll live there until I find an apartment of my own, or figure out if I'm even going to stay in Texas. That pile of stuff has some of my favorite things in it. Fuzzy, my bear from the Hershey's store in New York, my DVD collection, which is up to 47 movies, most of my books, my box of scarves, my unfinished quilt. Who knew looking at some of my prized possessions would be so depressing? I've been dreading this since I was just a little kid.
Little Catherine, 8 years old, sat crying at the dinner table after everyone else was done. I remember I had applesauce in front of me. I have to eat it slow. The texture can make me gag. Mom came up to me and asked what was wrong. I told her, "I don't want to move out and go to college." My mom gave me a hug and told me that it was a whole 10 years away and that by that time, I would want to be out of the house. Boy, was she wrong. She probably knew I wouldn't actually want to leave, but she knew that it was more important that an 8 year old worry about things like where her stuffed lion was than leaving home to go to college.
Growing up... it's hard. If I could have three wishes, I'm pretty sure I would use one to wish to be a kid again. I would wish to be a kid, but still know everything I know now. I would be kinder to other kids, help my mom out a whole lot more, and I would stop worrying so much. I'm a worrier, and I think it's taken many a year off my life. I would remind myself that going to elementary school is not nearly as bad as I thought, and that I should consider myself lucky to only have a half hour of homework every day. I wouldn't have quit piano lessons, and I would have tried out for a team or a play, because in the end, not one of the kids I knew back then would have remembered or even cared if I had made a fool of myself. I would have become better friends with boys I knew instead of worrying so much about whether they thought I like-liked them. I would have told my girl friends that, no, I didn't like the Backstreet Boys. I liked the Monkees, still played with Barbies and I still watched Arthur, because guess what? NOBODY CARES.
Growing up... it's a witch.
Older Catherine, 23 years old, sits crying on the couch, telling her mom she's afraid of leaving home and going into the real world. You know what her mom says?  "Everything else may change, but we will always be a family.This is going to be a happy time in your life." She may know that it's going to be really hard, but she knows that it's more important that a 23 year old worry about finding out who she is than about changes she can't control.