Throwback to my thoughts in May 2016:
If four years ago someone told me I would be a completely new person by the end of high school, I would've just rolled my eyes and laughed. Maybe that's just me and my ignorant self or maybe it's the fact that we hate to accept the idea of change. We fear to stray from the known and as within a month every one of the 500 seniors in my class will be forced to accept that. I can tell you one thing for sure is that at least half of my fellow graduates will force themselves to stay their 18 year old self forever.
Growing up is like those giant bounce houses when we were little; they look so daunting but one you experience it, it's thrilling and you never want to stop jumping. I've always been the kid to look forward to the jumping, to look forward to being a grown up and doing grown up things like going grocery shopping on my own or painting the color of my bedroom or driving a fancy car. But now, right before I step into the bounce house called growing up, I want to walk away.
I don't want to be the thirty year old person who cries in their one room apartment because they can't pay rent. I don't want to be the person who wakes up every Monday through Friday to painstakingly drive themselves to work to be tormented by an obnoxious boss. I want to be my five year old self again. I want my only worry to be is if my mom packed me animal crackers instead of carrots for snack today. I want my only tears to be shed when I scrape my knee riding my pink tasseled bicycle down the steep road. I want my Mondays through Fridays to be spent at recess underneath the slide talking about how some second grader gave me his last animal cracker. This thing called growing up is terrifying regardless of if you have a plan or not. Yes, I have a plan and I pray life goes according to it. I want my major going into college to stay the same because that's what I like to do. I want my profession to make me love waking up every morning. I want to never have to worry about not making next month's rent or having to survive off soup and some partially green bread. But I bet no one does.
There's an imaginary clock ticking down to different events in our lives: graduating from high school, and then college and then pursuing a career you're passionate about, to marrying your significant other, but you'll have to do that before you're 30 or else mom will throw a fit, to having a kid before you're 35. But what if you're not done pursuing your career by that age? What if you don't end up graduating from college, but you find your career? The whole timeline is messed up and the plan is thrown out the window. There's so much stress and you're back to thinking about how you'll pay next month's rent or how you'll stop sitting on the floor of your apartment and crying.
Life is going to be filled with the list of events on a ticking clock. It's going to be daunting, but we all know it's best to just close our eyes, clench our fists and take our first jump in this bounce house we call growing up.
