i don't mean that question in the sense of 'when am i gonna stop laughing at fart jokes in movies?' or 'when am i gonna get over my intense aversion to vegetables?' but instead in this sense: when am i gonna be able to walk into a store around mid- to late-july and see the 'back to school' sales and not feel the same momentary sinking feeling i felt upon the same view when i was a mere lad?

every year, sometime around mid july, i walk into a store or open a paper and see those signs proclaiming 'BACK TO SCHOOL SALE!' and suddenly i am 10 again. i am walking past the dining room table. a paper lays scattered in sections across the table. a few sales flyers lay about on top, coupons already cut out of some. one of them has that loud, taunting proclamation emblazoned in large, wavy letters across the top of the page. suddenly, on the horizon of time stretching out before me, which up until that moment had been clean and unbroken, there is a recognizable landmark peeking its head up, dead ahead and close. the same word jumps into my mind now as it did then, 'already!?'. i know at that moment that this means my birthday is just around the corner, the presents i will receive, school clothes mostly, determined by my birthday's uncomfortable proximity to the beginning of the school year. and then, after that, it's back to lunch boxes, bullies, quizzes, and school clothes, always one year behind the fashion of the times.

the feeling lasts for as long as it takes me to blink and remember that i am more than a decade past that chapter of my life. but, it comes back every year. so, when am i gonna grow up?