Growing up is overrated

Fadzayi Maposah Correspondent

Growing up is overrated! Goodness the glamour that was attached to being an adult when one was small was so much that each day, you wished the day only had 12-16 hours that you would wake up sooner all grown up

As a child you will be busy taking sips of your favourite drink in one of your mother’s or guardian’s biggest tumblers.

While having this cool drink, you will be seated on one of the family sofas with your legs crossed, totally relaxed. You did not forget to finish the chores that you were assigned, but you will get around to it once you have just finished relaxing a bit.

In the process, you are day dreaming. Day dreaming about your life in the distant future. It really seems so far off when you are young. It seems you need forever to get there.

Then you will have a good job and will afford so many of the things that your parents/guardians who always work hard for you, your siblings and fellow young relatives cannot afford as they are sacrificing so that you have all the basic needs covered.

In that day dream, you will not have so many responsibilities so you will have lots of money for the niceties. While your parents /guardians occasionally give you these as treats, when you are grown up they will part of the basic needs.

When the time is right, you will meet your prince charming and he will whisk you off your feet. What did the Mills Boon or Pacesetter that you read say about prince charming?

He would be strikingly handsome! He would be tall, with a dazzling smile that reveals very white teeth. He would also be athletic. Even the Shona novels that we read described the prince charming, “aive akaumbwa, ari murume pavarume, ari murefu, airatidza simba chero pakufamba, izwi rake raive nemutsindo!”( well built, a man among men, he was tall, showed that he was strong, even his walking revealed this, he had a booming voice!) Now who would not want to grow up and experience all this?

Add to that older relatives who visit when they have started working. When you rush to meet them, they give you a package to take indoors to the adults. As you carry the package you feel the weight and your eyes alert you that it contains your favourite biscuits.

You have to wait until the adults give you the biscuits or any other things that they deem you are fit for from the package. As you carry the package, you look at your sibling who has been allowed to carry the visitor’s handbag. One day, one day you think, it will be me.

You realise how very beautiful and poetic your totem as you hear your parents/guardians and other adults thank this visitor. One day, you say to yourself . . . Now as vakoma is settling in you are instructed to get a refreshment for her. Yes, now her name is prefixed by Vakoma which means that you have to acknowledge that they are your elder. One day . . .Vakoma now has it all easier than the past.

It seems from the moment that they became Vakoma, yes you have always known that they were your elder and when you wanted to call them Vakoma a few years ago, they were not so keen yet now each time you miss out Vakoma, they remind you! Occasionally, you take a look at your younger relatives, one day . . .

Then growing up happened! Oh my, you then realised that it is no walk in the park. It is a lot of work. The title Vakoma came with much expectations. Suddenly you were getting requests from your young relatives. As you read each little list, you wonder if these people that you grew up with think that money grows on trees and that you know exactly which trees to pick from.

Do they think that you are now a bank robber? You realise that you have to sacrifice so that you survive from one salary to the next or from one big sale of your project stuff to the next one.

Those men that you read about seem non-existent. How could those authors do that to your innocent mind? He is tall and good looking, but although he has white teeth, but his heart and intentions are not pure at all. You realise there is no perfect man!

When growing up we even overrated organs! Breasts are a good example. When I was younger, I looked forward to them growing and I wanted them very big, so that everyone could see that I had them. I also wanted to have a shelf of different bras . . .

No one tells the young people that breasts at some point in the menstrual cycle, there will be some breast tenderness. No, they do not. That is one thing that most women discover for themselves and realise that having breasts comes with some occasional discomfort which is even present in menopause.

When one starts wearing a bra, they do not want to take it off. They have waited for this moment for years and want to maximise the feeling. For some of us approaching menopause, the bra has become a cage from which I should escape.

Escapades are made when one is alone and at home, simply do not put it on! I see you frowning, I was one of you once but at times, I just want to be free! There are some who can relate.

The bras we are wearing are the correct size, but imagine combine breast tenderness and a bra, please allow us to have one! I have mastered unfastening the bra without taking off the clothes.

Remember now there is prefix to our names, we are not Vakoma for nothing! At times, the question is: Did we not grow up too fast? Things were easier when the chest was bare . . .