A marbled letter opener that my dad and I bought while in Venice a little over ten years ago, lays on his desk. It sits parallel to the edge of a tan-coloured letter tray, nestled between a matching tan-coloured magazine file and pencil holder, that, curiously, is only filled with blue pens. A painted coaster of a man playing polo sits in the top right hand corner next to the locked box with no key. No scratch on his desk surface ever left unvarnished. No scrap of paper ever just shoved to the bottom of the second desk drawer. Two large antique but not rusting abstract figurines bookend the same three political books; "In Search of Churchill" by Martin Gilbert, "An American Life" by Ronald Regan and "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow. Thin slips of yellow sticky notes, cut to be smaller, stick out of the tops of the books, to mark the important pages; topics written neatly in blue ink at the top left hand corner of each sticky. A limited edition Sinclair Harding clock, that belonged to my grandfather, sits next to a photo-frame. It has purposely been set three minutes ahead of the actual time. My father's desk has looked the same since I was little. Uniformity. Consistency. Precision. Almost as if the arrangement is a reflection of the manicurity and the self sufficiency I think of when look at my dad.

I am my father's daughter, to an extent. A glass horse, from that same trip to Venice, toned with the same dusty rose hue, sits on my desk staring at me, reminding me to work harder, to do better. Damask printed blue binders of school work, written only in blue ink, sit in the white shelving unit on top of my desk. "Becoming"  by Michelle Obama, " Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden and "A Spy and A Traitor" by Ben Macintyre, stacked, binding and title to see.. Matching gold letter tray, magazine file and pencil holder, all placed to mirror the edges of the hardwood. The surface of my desk, like my dad's, is perfect.. 

The drawers, however, are another story. Littered with the toxic waste of crumpled pages from old English assignments. Flyaway gum wrappers and cough drop aluminium foil are shoved to the back near the hinges. The sides are coated with the markings of uncapped sharpies that I was too lazy to place in the pencil holder. My friend once described the insides of my drawers as a clean freak's, "hell on earth". This, I have never understood, because I  am, by all means, a clean freak. It is hardwired in my DNA. Written in blue ink. Cemented in my mind from the moment I saw my dad measure exactly one centimeter from the edge of his desk, in order to place his coaster in the right spot.

It's okay though, because I am seventeen. And seventeen year olds can have messy drawers.  And seventeen year olds can thrive in the glory of tossing any old random folder in a drawer and closing it to the sweet serenity of a pristine desk surface. And seventeen year olds don't have to worry about the reality that in a year, a gum wrapper must go in the trash, not in the back of the second desk drawer. Seventeen year old's don't have to worry about that, right? 

People have always told me that I was never really a child. Perhaps the image of a small Ally playing in a concrete jungle being pulled from country to country was not super conducive to the typical idea of a childhood. I never minded them saying it though, I never wanted to be a child. I wanted the desk, the glasses, the briefcase; I wanted to be like my dad. 

The Oxford English dictionary describes adulthood as "the state or condition of being fully grown or mature". In one year, I turn eighteen, the physical year of being considered fully grown and mature. The prospect of turning eighteen scares me. I will be forced into being the physical manifestation of my clean surface. My childhood will become the gum wrappers shoved to the back of my desk. 

At eighteen, I will never be a child again. Something I never wanted to be, but something I can never be again. I spent my childhood wishing to be an adult and will spend my adulthood wishing to be a child. This is the cruel irony of life.

I wonder if my dad ever wishes he could sit at my desk.