Childhood to Maturity

“…her world seemed layered in three different parts, all the twelve years of the old Frankie, the present day itself, and the future ahead…” pg. 61

At this moment, Frankie is just leaving the Blue Moon bar and realizes that this is not an activity that twelve-year-olds typically engage in. She is obviously not happy with her life thus far and She realizes that she is more or less alone within her family. She is caught between the childhood that John Henry is still exploring and the adulthood that Janice and Jarvis are entering. Frankie realizes that this day marks her exit from childhood and her arrival into maturity, at least in her own mind. She is beginning to think of all that she will do and the ways that she will act as an “adult.” For example, as uneducated as she is about anything regarding sex, she realizes that there is something of this nature that she will be involved with. It is hard to say, however, if she is trying to change the way that she feels about herself or change the way that everyone else views her.

Frankie is trying to leave behind her childhood, but also actually go into the “grown up world.” As they are two different things, which do you think is more important to her?