I had one of those “oh haven’t you grown” moments today. The patronising tone, looked down at, complete cliche.

However, I was not the one being patronised. I was the one who spoke that unoriginal phrase.

To be fair. It was to a kid that I hadn’t see since she was 4, and is now 10. But still.

Am I really that old? I’m only 18. I have been told that I am “mature for my years”, but then again, I have tendencies to moments of complete and utter silliness.

How old do you have to be before those phrases become common stock? When all that comes out of my mouth is a collaboration of cliches that generations have painstakingly bestowed upon their descendants? Or is it based more on the age gap between the cliche-giver and the cliche-receiver?

For one of my old friends (old! argh!) saying a cliche is a cardinal sin, and has to be resolved by pressing upon me the gravity of the crime I just commited by repeating the cliche several times in varying voices of mock and disdain.

I think they may just be right. Exaggerating a little. But right in a way.