"So Kate, today would you like to be a child or an adult?"

To be perfectly honest, I know I sound like a three year old when I repeat to my parents that I am "seventeen and a half!" The constant reminder, even if unnecessary. I'm pretty sure my mother remembers the day that she went through epic pain on her 27th birthday. Truth is, on reflection I don't think I'm reminding them- I'm reminding myself.

Not so much reminding perhaps, but trying to figure out what that means, that somehow by repeating the age I will figure out what the hell I am. My sister is 13, a teenager, a child. My mother and father are adults, and then there's me- seventeen and a half...what am I?!

Legally I'm not an adult for another six months
Technically I have the body of a woman
Mentally? It changes.

We had guests staying from Switzerland and my parents witty banter made me blush slightly when they announced to the table the topic of my "tantrums" included me screaming my exact age down the stairs, or muttering it under my breath in disagreement. At this point, one of them suggested very amusingly that I should announce what I want to be for the day. For example waking up and declaring "Today, I am a child" or "Today I am an adult" and sticking to that label throughout the day. I joked, noticing the amount of washing up after our meal as it was New Years and announced "Today, I am a child." My father then reminded me that children cannot drink champagne.

Although, I am guilty for changing my label, so do my parents. If they want something done and it isn't, or I having done the washing up I am an adult and I "should do this without thinking now". However, if I want to go out when I want then I have miraculously become a child and therefore cannot leave the house. (Although, my parents are pretty reasonable when it comes to going out)

I have many theories why I am so stuck in the middle.

1. Yes, I could leave school and get a job, but I am still dependent on my parents for food and shelter...and anything else I need.
2. Connecting to number one, they are paying for university, and therefore my future.
3. In six months I will be able to legally go clubbing, my parents can also tell me, no I cannot go.
4. I have the body of a woman, but I cannot reveal it inappropriatly because my father wouldn't let me out of the house.
5. I can have a boyfriend, yet he cannot sleep over.
6. I am dependent on lifts from my parents.

It's funny, I argue against most of the points...when I write it out, it makes sense...
oops.
sorry mum and dad, hopefully I'll get it before my eighteenth birthday...

Although sometimes I wonder if my parents really remember being my age, it's tough!I'm one of those people who needs to plan and needs to know what's going on before I do anything and yet, I have no idea where I stand.

I am in conflict with my own body.

Physically I am an adult
Mentally I am an adult (although I an act like a child occasionally)
So why on earth do I get treated like a child by some and an adult by others?!

So today, I am going to be a youth:

Old enough to know better,
Too young to care.