Another year of being a teenager and another year of learning new things has passed and now I'm officially turning eighteen in a couple of days. This age seemed so far away when I was just starting middle school and like many people, I never thought it would come. It felt more like an idea, a concept someone else had already arranged that I would look forward to, but I would never actually have it.
Out of all the ages I've been, seventeen is going to be the one I'll miss the most. It was a year of finding out who I was through making new friends and losing some and finding out who I wanted to be as I picked which college I was going to. Out of all the ages I've been, seventeen is going to be the one I'll miss the most. It was a year of finding out who I was through making new friends and losing some, and finding out who I wanted to be as I picked which college I was going to. Although I had trouble dealing with growing up and making hard decisions, it was one of the best years I've had and it's going to be hard to welcome eighteen in.
I've heard many people say that seventeen is your off year; it's the middle of excitement from your sweet sixteen and being legal, but I think seventeen is just the right age to be. It's being able to feel anxious about growing up but still having the ability to relax because you know that this is your year to become whoever you want to be and how you control your life from now on.
Now, with all the good qualities about being seventeen, I am terrified to see what eighteen brings me. I mean, every birthday is nerve wracking because of the uncertainty of growing up, but eighteen is such a big step toward more responsibilities that I'm afraid I won't understand how to deal with it. Of course I'll have many other friends turning eighteen, too, but what if they know how to handle it better than me? Will I always be the one behind?
As I turn eighteen, I hope to keep seventeen with me. I want to keep all of it's fun memories and all of the freedoms that came with it. I want to keep the positive feelings about growing up and I want to love all the challenges that come at me through the next year. I am scared of turning eighteen, not only because of growing up, but because I'm afraid I might lose some part of me that I held so close when I was seventeen. As I go through the next year, I hope I learn more things than I did before and make better decisions that won't make me so afraid of it anymore.