Of Fruit Roll-Ups and My Little Ponies and Not Growing Up

I’m not a grown up. 

I still love fruit roll-ups. I have one everyday at lunch. Sometimes, I have two. If they still made the ones with little cut-outs, I’d eat them by cut-out, smallest to largest…or least favorite shape to favorite shape. I eat a lot of things in such a precise, scientific order. Sweet Tarts? Green to Orange to Blue to Pink and Purple. Pink and purple are my favorite Sweet Tart colors, but despite that, those are not my favorite color colors. See, I’m not a really girly-girl kind of girl. Until it comes to My Little Ponies. 


Growing up, I was the kind of kid who played in the dirt more than with dolls. I wasn’t a big fan of Barbies unless it was for cutting off all their hair and switching up their heads and bodies. I was what you might call a tom boy, but like with any other label or stereotype, I didn’t quite fit in the round hole perfectly.

I was one of those rare little girls who fell in love with horses at an early age. I know. A little girl who loved horses? It’s pretty shocking. My Little Ponies were pretty much a given for me to adore. I watched the cartoons, played with the toys. When I see a My Little Pony at Wal-Mart now, I still have to stop and marvel over its pretty hair and colorfulness. Deep inside, I have a nearly overwhelming urge to buy one, rip it out of its package, and gallop it across my bedroom floor. I do manage to resist. Most of the time. I think they look so different now than they did when I was a child that I can fight the temptation. But…

I’m not a grown up.

When I go to antique or thrift stores and see the My Little Ponies from my childhood, the First Generation Ponies, I cave. I might even seek the suckers out. Of course, partially, this is from a Pony Renaissance that occurred late in my teens. During this Renaissance, I bought up a boocoodle of ponies and sold the suckers on eBay to adult collectors. You didn’t know there was an underground My Little Pony collecting movement? Oh, lemme tell you. 

Via
I probably want this t-shirt. Because it speaks the truth.

There are hundreds of collectors out there. Little girls like myself who grew up but still miss the whimsy and fun of a colorful toy pony with a colorful tail to brush. It’s true. And like collectors of pretty much anything else, these peeps are serious. I once sold a My Little Pony on eBay for over a hundred bucks. Yep, a single pony that I had paid like a dollar for from some unsuspecting thrift store owner. 

During this brief stint dealing ponies, I made over a thousand bucks, and anytime I see a “vintage” pony in a store now, all I want to do is buy it and play with it and then sell it for way too much money. It’s a sad reality, I know. But again…

I’m not a grown up.

I do things like watch Disney movies and sing all the songs at the top of my lungs.

I get ridiculously excited at the prospect of going to a fair and eating my weight in cotton candy, funnel cakes, and corn dogs and riding The Scrambler until I puke.

I buy a new stuffed animal on almost every vacation I make. Particularly if it’s a Disney vacation. And I may or may not sleep with those stuffed animals, along with my cats and my husband.

Speaking of Disney vacations, my husband and I try to go to Disney World every two years. We went there on our honeymoon. We don’t have kids, but we enjoy it just as much as a kid would.

I love visiting zoos. Take me to a zoo, and I’ll skip around like a kid. One of my favorite things to do in this world.
I eat things like potato chips and popcorn for lunch.

I still believe in things like magic and happily ever after. Fairy tales that come true. Villains who are eventually conquered.

Technically, I may be a grown up, but...

I’m really nothing but a big kid at heart. And I like it that way. So I’m gonna stick with eating a fruit roll-up at lunch everyday. To be honest, I think it may be keeping the old age at bay.


What makes you "not a grown up"?