A few weeks ago as I was sitting in my room geekily doing my homework, I heard some very loud screams emanating from the Quad. I thought someone was getting robbed, beaten, or maybe the Econ Scream part 2 was taking place. Any way you put it, I wasn’t about to go out there to find out what was going on.

My night continued kind of lazily, until someone knocked at my door. I opened it, as I usually do when someone is at the door, and two seconds later I felt something cold hit my face. There was my friend holding five more snowballs in his arms waiting to peg me with them. Which he did. After a moment of confusion, a glance out the window revealed hundreds of students in the Quad, having the largest snowball fight I have ever seen in my life. While joining in the festivities, I contemplated the meaning of this event.

We are all forced day in and day out to act like perfect adults. We are at a school where we have to get good grades, present ourselves properly, and fend for ourselves. But really, I don’t think we are ready for this. Whenever we are given the chance, we revert right back to being kids. Case in point: the Quad snowball fight.

I don’t know why, but somehow the snow transforms us all back to children sitting contentedly on swings for hours; back to times when we’d go sledding from dawn till dusk; back to times of jungle gyms and baseball. It takes us back to the age where our biggest fear was the boogey monster or the man in the closet (take your pick). I am at a point where I would much rather trade in my glass of beer for a glass of milk. I would much rather sit in my room and watch my five hours of Saturday morning cartoons, or go back in time and watch “Ghost Writer,” “Are You Afraid of The Dark,” “All That” or “Doug.” And I know I’m not alone.

We all just want to be kids. I know I want to all the time; that’s me playing video games, whining about homework, and not doing my laundry until I go home (where my mommy can do it). Now, I know that some here disagree. Some think that they are as adult as can be, while others think that we are not meant to be adults yet in college at all – the real world comes later, and we can’t revert back to childhood, because we never really had to move on from it in the first place. I disagree. I know the pressures that school puts on all of us. We are forced to work, attend meetings, pay for things ourselves (sort of), and take care of ourselves. We are really asked to and kind of thrown into running our lives. We are asked to act like adults, period.

Before I came to college, I realized that I wasn’t ready to grow up. I was scared then, and frankly, I’m scared now: I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. The snowball fight was comforting, though. It showed that maybe no one else is ready either.

Growing up is scary. I don’t know when that turning point comes, the one where you are ready to face the world with no fears. I don’t think it’s now, when I’m 18. I don’t think it’s that convenient legal drinking age benchmark of 21, either. I don’t really know when it is. I just know that even when we reach that point, or are forced to be at that point, we will always revert back to our former selves. We will go back to being little kids, because truthfully, those were the best times in life. If I could give one piece of advice it would be to take advantage of those moments when we revert back because they give us a glimpse of a better life, one that will keep us sane when reality really starts to hit us like a snowball to the face.