Jenny was talking about something the other day and I’m not sure I heard her right the first time.

She used the words “match your eight” in her sentence.

“Match your eight”?

What’s that about?

It took a while, but I figured out that she’d said “maturate”.

Maturate?

What’s that about?

I’m kidding….I know what that’s about.

Maturing as a human being…..right?

That’s kind of hard.

I mean…..really kind of hard.

To do.

Of course, if you play the game correctly and surround yourself with the trappings….do some of the “old” things…do what’s expected of you….the world might get the impression that you’re “mature”.

If you slow down long enough for people to notice, they might think that you are one really mature person in a crowd of youthful posers.

If you really slow down long enough, they might think that you’re the “real deal”….a fully realized and completely finished mature human being.

I carry a secret inside my high top Converse sneakers, though….I’m a poser.

I’m getting older….but I can’t “match your eight”.

I can take on responsibilities….I can give myself an ulcer with worry about meeting those responsibilities….I can rise to the challenge like any concerned adult…but….

inside, I’m PETER PAN…flying around Neverland….looking for a dog and some kids to hang out with.

There’s nothing mature about that.

I’m not alone in that, though….there’s a lot of posers out there.

There’s a lot of folks who just won’t grow up.

It’s good that there’s enough smoke in the air to mask the details of all that immaturity.

What would we do without smoke and mirrors?

What did I read? That “childlike” is different than “childish”?

Maybe it’s good to hold onto some of the feelings I had when I was actually young?

Who said that we hit a point where we are GROWNUPS, anyway? Who said that we had to get older and then start to ACT OLD?

I think that there’s a big difference between “aging” and “acting old”.

I don’t want to start (or keep) acting old.

I have a couple of little kids in the house…I can’t be acting old, now, can I?

I can’t do a thing about the aging part of the deal.

That’s genetic.

But I can do something about the “acting old” part.

I’m not as afraid to grow up as I am to grow old inside my head.

I don’t want to be the angry old dog under the kitchen table….snapping at the young legs of the diners out of pure spiteful crankiness.

I want to be that dog that tries to catch the frisbee….while his owners say, “You know, he’s 14 years old….that’s pretty old for a big dog…”

“Match your eight”….that’s pretty funny.

Don’t give away my secret…it took a while to create this disguise.