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VPR's coverage of arts and culture in the region.

Young Writers Project: 'Not A Teenager, Nor A Child'

Woodstock’s Nicole Jasmin offers up a healthy dose of exasperated humor this week as she acknowledges that it’s not easy growing up.
YWP Photo Library, photo by Alexandra Contreras-Montesano, Burlington
Woodstock’s Nicole Jasmin offers up a healthy dose of exasperated humor this week as she acknowledges that it’s not easy growing up.";s:

I want to be the person I want to be, silly and happy like a child.
But at the same time, I want to act grown-up.

Some teens that I'm around just seem to be a little… grown-up for me?
I wonder if other people feel that way.
I don't want to be identified as "Nicole the Child."
I don't want to be identified as "Nicole the Teen."
All I want to be called is Nicole.
(Or Tater, the nickname my parents call me.)

What? Should I be with the serious and hard-working seniors?
Or instead with the young, crazy second-graders?
I am a seventh-grader; I want to fall in between.
Don't say that I'm growing up too fast, Mom and Dad,
and don't call me immature. I don't want to hear that.
It's not easy to be considered a "kid" at 13 years of age,
just as it’s also not hard to mistake me for a teen.
I'm just starting puberty – not ending it!

Put me in one of those younger or older groups one day,
and you'll find all your pizza gone the next.

I've made my rant about being a teen, and being a youngster.
I should probably stop saying these things about myself.
 

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