I know I should be ready, but alas, I am not. Not ready work, not ready to drive, not ready to leave, not ready to move on , not ready to grow up. I get like this quite frequently, although I'm not quite sure why. It is incredibly hard to put how I feel about growing up into the right words, so I apologize ahead of time if you end up leaving this vent of mine more flustered than you were to begin with.
It all started during the transition from elementary school to junior-high school. For most people, this would not be very difficult. I don't even know if "difficult" is the right word to describe my first experience of moving forward in life. Back in grade six, everything was fun and everybody was friends with each other. There was no lying, backstabbing, or cheating. Nobody had trust issues and the definition of dating was sitting together at lunch and pushing each other on the swing set.
In retrospect, I guess it's fair to say that I didn't know very much about life. But I still would prefer to have it that way. On the last day of grade six, the last day of elementary, the last day of everything I knew, I cried. I cried probably a lot more than what was considered normal (but I reckon I still sometimes do that). I was devastated. I felt like I was being abandoned by familiarity and drowning in the unknown. I felt this all the way into grade seven, the start of junior-high, to the beginning of grade eight. That was when I had mostly moved past my elementary life, but that was also when I began to understand and discover new feelings of confusion and sadness. This was when I actually sat down and thought about how fast my life was going by. To this day, I still feel unsettled when I ponder this mystery of how fast everything comes and goes. It's quite a depressing thought, actually.
Life is like race-cars and a never-ending track filled with them. Some of the cars crash and create speed-bumps or obstacles that the rest of the cars need to get around. Sometimes they stop and need to think about their next maneuver. Sometimes they cheat and cut across the track. It always comes back to bite them in the bumper (metaphorically speaking), however, and they need to start all over again, having learned the lesson. The competition keeps the cars moving, but it can also slow them down. They get discouraged and want to quit, and only time will tell if they do or not.
Next year, I am going into grade ten - the first year of high school. Yes, the always dreaded High School. Where all the horrible things from junior high that you've finally forgotten come back all over again just to double the pain. Or at least that's what I've heard. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect. Many opinions on high school have been shared and discussed, most of them being positive. Then again, as mentioned earlier, I have issues with moving on. These people don't. I am not like them and they are not like me. Perhaps that is a good thing because the world would have a hard time handling any more "me"s and all the depth and confusion that is included in the package. The kind of three-for-one deal nobody wants.
Anyway, back on the point, I have found one way to relieve myself of all the stress I get from growing up and it comes in the form of music. The first time I heard this song, my jaw was on the floor and I was utterly speechless. Utterly smitten. I couldn't believe that I could actually relate to something. I listened to it again, only this time, I found myself literally bawling because I finally understood what I was feeling. I was feeling lonely. You are probably wondering the name of this song I speak so fondly of. It is suitably titled "Never Grow Up" by the one and only, Taylor Swift. This song really hit home with me. It feels good to know that there is someone who feels the same, who has a mutual feeling. Thank you, Taylor Swift.
I conclude this vent by saying that I am still not ready to grow up and I don't believe I ever will be. I fear too many things in the future that most people are excited for. The older I get, the more I try to impress everyone else in my life, only resulting in me getting hurt. The bright side of this is that this leads me to think about everything from a different perspective; sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Either way, it aids me in becoming a better and wiser person. I discover new things about myself and then I am just that much closer to figuring out who I really am inside. I just need to learn to face the fact that I will grow up because I have no choice. Loosing my childhood. My worst fear.
All I want is to be able to make myself proud and the only way to do that is if I let myself stop fearing what is coming towards me at an alarming pace. It's not going to be easy.
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