5 Things I Hated As A Kid But That I Love Now

By

1. Kissing/anything sexual

When you were a kid, there was such a thing as “cooties”, which basically just meant that someone was being physically affectionate with you. Clandestine smooches on the playground, a playful rub on the neck: these things were considered to gross behavior. As you get older though, one can never have enough cooties! Unless someone has an incurable STD, you pray that someone will spread their cooties alllll over you. “Give it! Infect me with your touch please!”

2. Being sent to your room

Getting sent to your room when you were a kid was basically like getting sent to the electric chair–which is weird because you had the most active imagination as a child. Couldn’t you just like hallucinate fairies and wars and just call it a day? But no, every minute was pure torture. Today, if someone sent me to my room, I would be overjoyed. You mean I can just read a book, burn incense and masturbate with no questions asked? Thank god! I’m long overdue for those things anyway.

3. Family vacations

Family vacations used to mean that you were your parents’ bitch for a week straight. You did what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, and you had absolutely no say in the matter. Now, if my family is going on vacation, do you know what I hear? “FREEEEEEE.” I get to go somewhere and hang out with my family, who I miss dearly, and get drunk with my sister on their dime. Hip hip hooray!

4. Vegetables

A kid’s idea of a healthy food is a fruit snack and like everyone else under the age of ten, I detested vegetables. I would only eat broccoli if my mom soaked it in mayo! (I know, super sick, I’m embarrassed just typing about it.) One of the awesome things about getting older though is that your palate DOES get more sophisticated AKA healthy. Today I ate a kale salad and wasn’t even pissed about it. (Okay, I was 10% pissed.) The point is that I would never even think to eat something like that when I was younger. I would’ve seen the green lettuce and screamed bloody murder. So yay for moving beyond Gushers and Fruit By The Foot as our main source of nutrition.

5. Being smart

I’m not saying I was Stephen Hawking growing up but two of my favorite hobbies were reading books and writing screenplays in my Harriet The Spy notebook. Everyone used to make fun of me in school because instead of asking for Transformers for Christmas, I’d be like, “Mom, can I have Buffy The Vampire Slayer scripts?” (I was so blessed, so gifted, so talented!) Whatever, let’s be real. Being a bookworm is not chic when you’re a kid. But now it’s, like, totally taboo if you don’t like to read and/or act dumb. IT’S COOL TO BE NERDY. FINALLY. (And by nerdy, I mean “fake nerdy.” You still have to dress cute and have a nice face because SOCIETY IS AN ASSHOLE.

You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.

Martin Cathrae/div>