A Grown-Up Kid Anonymous

"Hurry, everyone, she's here!"

The children started running towards the door. As you can imagine, I turned around to see who all the fuss was about. There was no one behind me. Suddenly, I was encircled by a knot of small arms pulling me away from the door as laughter filled the room. The children sat me down and forced me to swear by pain of fruit snack deprivation that I would never leave Writopia again, not even for the lunch break I just returned from. Once this was duly sworn, cries of "We missed you! Don't ever leave us!" filled the air. I could feel myself tearing up. Our summer session was coming to a close, and I was going to miss them too.

My journey as an intern at Writopia Lab, a non-profit organization that provides writing workshops for children and teens, cemented the realization that I was growing up. I was no longer the eleven year old student starting my first workshop, but rather an intern sharing my love of words and writing with a younger generation. I typed for children when their fingers could not keep up with their words, helped them craft stories, and chaperoned trips. On a visit to McMillan Publishing House, two weeks into my summer internship, the three students assigned to me chose the group name...