Culmination

Life is a series of little moments

Strung together like pearls on a necklace

All adding up to a significant change—

There is no single point, no pivotal event

But a series of slight shifts that you don’t

Notice until they have accumulated.

So I couldn’t just say, “I realized

I was a child no more when I earned

My driver’s license hours after taking

my biology final.”

And I wouldn’t be telling the full truth

If I typed on a computer, “I first

Looked into the face of adulthood on

My seventeenth birthday” because, in truth,

It’s a culmination of all those things

Of understanding every dirty joke

And realizing you’re facing senior year

With five months left until you turn eighteen

I guess you could say I don’t know for sure

Exactly when I chose to see myself

As past the tender stage of childhood

But I remember when I was a kid

A girl who thought she’d be forever young

I see a different person than the one

Who set foot in the high school that first day

And walked to classes without any clue

Of things beyond the scope of being young

And opportunities of growing up.