I can't wait until I'm 16, then I will have a car and a license and I can go wherever I want.
I can't wait until I'm 21, then I will be able to go out to the bars, and to the liquor store. I won't need to ask someone else to buy me a bottle of wine.
I can't wait until I'm through with college, then I will have a steady job and be able to move out. I will finally be independent.
I can't wait until I have a paying-job, and my own house, and kids of my own. I will finally feel whole.
The list goes on and on. Maybe you couldn't wait until you were 17 so that you could finally go see an R-rated movie without it being a big deal. Or maybe you couldn't wait until you were 18, for what reasons? We might never know. The fact is that the reasons aren't really that significant at all. The significance lies in the idea that so often we find ourselves begging time to move faster. I've done it. In fact, I still do. When I am under a great deal of stress, I mutter to myself just how great it would be to fast-forward a few years to when I am graduated from college, with a job I love and a family to care for. It's just like when I was seven years old, and would walk around in my mom's high heels, with my toy purse and paper money, chatting frivolously on my plastic cell phone. I just wanted to be older.
Now, I am older. I have my own heels, and countless purses of my own, money with value, and of course, my treasured iPhone. I have everything I wanted, and the age to go with it. It just so happens that with that iPhone and the high heels, comes a whole wad of responsibility that I couldn't have anticipated when I was seven years old. Now, I look back at old photographs, and wish I could go back. We all do. Sometimes you just want to be a kid again. Hide from the demands that daily life now harbors you. We yearned so badly to grow up, to be like our parents, relatives, babysitters. But by doing this, we completely underestimated the value and power of our adolescence.
We need to stop imagining just how great it would be in a few years. Sure, keep it in the back of your minds, set goals, and have drive. But don't let those visions get in the way of you enjoying the stage of life that you are in now. By doing this, we avoid looking back in time with regret, and we set the stage for the future. We enter a new period of living, knowing that we did all we could in our power to fill the previous times with experiences we used to look forward to having. Our times will come, we will be adults with families and homes of our own, we will retire and vacation in warm places; but not now. Now, we will strive to fill that future with memories that we can smile about in twenty years time. This is our time.
