Despite being 16-years-old, it’s extremely difficult to pull myself out of the habits and mannerisms I’ve maintained throughout my childhood.

For example: my love of cartoons.

Television has always been my medium of comfort, from horror films to sitcoms.

That being said, my most re-watched show of all time is Ducktales (2017) with 23 watches in full, and that doesn’t bother me a bit (if someone else has topped that, I’m beyond impressed).

And it hadn’t dawned on me just how set in my own ways I’ve been until my mother pointed it out to me the other day as I was curled up on the floor, a Lilo & Stitch blanket draped across my shoulders and my Nintendo Switch in hand as I sang along to the My Little Pony theme song.

Her exact words to me were, “You’re just never gonna grow up, are you?”

She was pretty amused, but this quote has rattled me to my core.

It’s hard to envision the inevitable transition from teenagedom to adulthood, and I’m not sure I fully understand the magnitude of such a momentous shift. Even as I collect my hours behind the wheel to get my driver’s license or set foot into a college level class, I’m still pretty kid-ish.

I hold my mom’s hand when we cross the street sometimes, I still say ‘criss-cross applesauce’, and I struggle to conceptualize things I’ve seen the adults in my life do a million times, absentmindedly glancing instead of absorbing the information because there’s someone else to do it for me.

Soon enough it’ll be just me, unaware of how supremely silly I seem from an outside perspective. It’s the kind of person who looks lost in a grocery store despite knowing exactly what they’re there for.

I’ll argue that it’s a part of my charm until the day I keel over, but eventually the tether I feel to my youthfulness and childlike wonder will fade, and that’s both relieving and mortifying.

Hopefully, the person left beneath the mashed shell of cartoons, dino nuggets and figurines is just as likable as the immature beta model—it’d be devastating if they weren’t.