Just when you think the pressure's off, and you get used to a bit of relaxation, all of a sudden it's time to crank up those brains again and find your seat on this year's seating plan (not that you have those when you get to year 13 or, as it's more commonly known, the second year of college).
The second year of college. Year thirteen. I am on the brink of becoming a second year. Whenever I meet a young child, if I'm on holiday or visiting friends with younger siblings, and they ask me what year I'm in, I do actually have to think about it before I reply. Once I do, I can see exactly what they're thinking because the expression on my face when I was their age mirrored theirs exactly: wow, you're old.
And I am. I am old. Not in the scheme of things, but ignoring the bigger picture, I am almost eighteen and I'm just wondering how exactly that happened. When I look back upon my childhood, I can remember time moving painfully, frustratingly slowly until I was about fifteen - my hatred for that compulsory place of torture mutinously described as school saw to that - and then all of a sudden, it was like somebody had clicked their fingers and put my life on fast forward times three.
Why is it that the older you get, the faster life goes? Day after day after long, repetitive day adds up to time flicking past in the blink of an eye, until eventually you feel like you're in a washing machine on spin dry, banging on the glass and going "let me out!". Whatever happened to being a kid? Whatever happened to irresponsibility? Actually, I'm secretly wondering when I'm going to have that rebellion my parents seem sure I'll have; first I was too young for things, and now I'm too old. I get the "you want to be treated like an adult, you have to act like one" speech quite a lot - then I get the "not under my roof, other people your age have to pay rent" speech too. The inner adult and the inner child in me are constantly having arguments; can't keep their fists under control. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. But seriously, it's like I've spent my whole life so far waiting - to leave primary school, to be a teenager, to get my ears pierced, to get a phone (and I thought they were important things). And then later on: waiting for exams, waiting to be pretty, waiting for a boyfriend (still waiting), waiting for results, waiting to be confident enough to sing in public, waiting to be... myself. And I know that we've been here before, all this "I'm not a sheep, blah blah, confidence, blah blah..." but it's true. And now comes A Levels, and we work hard for those so we can go to university and put ourselves under even more pressure, and I'm just wondering what the point is.
I always thought I'd go to uni, even when I wasn't old enough to have the foggiest idea what to study - thought it was automatic. It was what people did, so why not me too? I've never questioned my future, never thought of changing it, making it my future. Obviously I've chosen the subjects I want to study, but I never thought of doing anything besides going to college, doing A Levels, going to uni... ten years from now I see myself with a job, a relationship, maybe even married. When I was younger, I had it all planned out: by thirteen I'd be popular. Didn't happen. By sixteen I'd have a boyfriend... didn't happen. By twenty-five I'll be either very nearly engaged, engaged or married... and to be honest I doubt that will happen either. I always wanted a boyfriend... the boyfriend, you know? I thought it was weird that I'd got to seventeen without ever having a proper relationship. But now I'm starting to think I'm something of a commitment phobe, which is something I never thought I'd be. Even though I've got friends who are less experienced than myself (and I have had very little boy contact), they've all been romantically interested in somebody for more than a few months... and I never have. Whenever I meet someone and find a mutual attraction, the spark wears off within a few weeks... most recently, a few hours - an impressive record by anyone's standards. When the attraction isn't mutual, that tends to fade away pretty quickly as well - except for this last crush of mine, which has been ongoing since January, though admittedly not as strongly over the summer. We'll see what happens when I get back to college.
Of late it has occurred to me that things don't happen just because they happen to everyone else. I had such naive ideas about the world and it never once crossed my mind that it wouldn't all come to pass. But now, sitting here as a seventeen year old who is completely clueless about... well, pretty much anything except how to piss people off by correcting their grammar, I've realised that I'm basically an adult now and when it comes to my future, nobody can force me into anything. I don't have to leave home next year. I could take a gap year. Get a job. Go travelling (as cliched as that is). Learn piano. I could do anything. The world, as they say, is my crayfish. Or lobster. Or even oyster. Or any other type of hard-exterior'ed creature which takes residence in the sea. There's no time limit on education - I could go to uni when I'm twenty-five... or even eighty-five. (Not that I'd leave it that late; I'm just backing up my point with a little bit of over exaggeration. You should try it sometime. It's great for blowing off stress. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE!... And all that jazz).
I started this blog post intending to complain about finding myself on the verge of becoming an adult (to empathize with me, imagine fast forwarding through a film you've never seen to about half way - then, when you've got no idea what's going on, imagine you're the main character, living the story but with no background knowledge as to how you got to where you are. And there we go with that exaggeration again. But it's almost like that.) but I come away believing I've actually made some headway towards deciding my future. That's sometimes what happens when I write: I begin believing I know my characters, and then halfway through one of them does something that takes me completely by surprise. That's what's happening to me, only it's my own story I'm writing now. It feels good to be in charge of myself - at least for now, right here in this moment. By tomorrow I'll be panicking about my first day back and wishing I could be five years old again. (Highly overrated, being five. You spend all your time wishing you were older... and then when you get there you spend all your time wishing you weren't.)
They say youth is wasted on the young. They say "I wish I'd known then what I know now" - but nobody ever tells 'the young' what they wish they'd known. Maybe if we tried sharing every once in a while, we'd be able to create a generation of adults with a great many less regrets.
Molly x
Sunday 12 September 2010
Friday 3 September 2010
September 3rd: Time to face the music, cut the crap and bite the bullet (and other well known phrases).
There are times in our lives when we know everything.
Or rather, we think we do. Or maybe we actually do. Maybe we only know what we want to do right now, right this second, and we have no idea what lies beyond then, or maybe we have our whole lives mapped out. Maybe we know exactly what we want from the future, but we have no idea how to reach out and grab it. And maybe we don't have a clue. Maybe we're having opportunities and ideas thrust upon us left, right, and centre, and it's confusing the hell out of us. Maybe we're finding passions and talents we never even knew we had and we have no idea what to do about them.
When you find something and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's what you want to spend your life doing, you want to do it now. You don't want any other subjects or distractions getting in the way. I was lucky enough to be one of those people who found that elusive instantaneous 'click', that moment where something sparks inside your brain and you sit up straight, thinking, knowing 'this is it'. But I'm not one of those people who finds exams particularly easy, so getting to a point where I can do only English Language (i.e. at university) is going to be hard. It's very irritating really, knowing you could excel at something if only you didn't have to worry about other things as well.
What really gets on my nerves is when people tell me how lucky I am. Yes, I am lucky. I know that. I have had opportunities this summer alone that some people don't get in a lifetime. I've got (to quote my mother) 'a lovely family, a nice secure home in a lovely environment, you're gorgeous, and you're healthy (apparently)'. And yes, of course I know that. Of course I know I could be much worse off. I know that there are people all over the world who are less fortunate than me. But seriously, I'm still entitled to a bad mood every once in a while! 'What exactly have you got to worry about?' she says. 'Your life is perfect.' And oh, mother, if only you knew exactly how unperfect my life is. And she gives me a list of all the things she has to do - and I appreciate how busy she is, of course I do, and I'm sorry I don't always have time to tidy my room but frankly I rate passing my exams more highly. And gah, when she says 'I know you're not doing work up there' - well of course I am! How could I pass if I didn't? Obviously I'm not doing work all the time, but I'm not a robot. It's all right for her, she already knows where her life is going and she's got everything she needs all planned out. She's my mum. I mean, nuff said, right? Though sometimes I wonder about who she used to be and what she really wanted from life...
Sometimes I want to write, but I don't know what. The inspiration is there, within me, but I can't find the right words to express it - it's the most frustrating feeling in the world. I feel that way now; that's why I'm here. The whole reason of this blog's existence is for moments like this, so that I don't have to bore any of my friends with my pretentious sentimentality.
Primary school. Secondary school. College. Education. Why does it go so fast? Why is it that people consider the perspective of children and young adults invalid simply because they're young? We have to go through so many experiences, so many learning curves, throughout the years of our schooling that we grow up far more quickly than perhaps we should... because if we don't, we're ridiculed for it. Funny, isn't it, that sheep are the considered the most brainless creatures in existence, and yet they are the metaphor we use to describe the majority of the human race. Funny and yet so understandable. But I don't want to be a sheep. I can't baaa. And trust me, I've tried. To baa, I mean, as well as to fit in. But I just don't. I know I've said all this before but I can't understand why it took me seventeen years to realize that it's okay to be different - good, in fact.
Yes, I don't dress like the 'popular' people. I don't go out every weekend. I'm friends with my freaking teachers, for God's sake, and that's pretty weird. But I like it. I like... myself. Don't get me wrong: I'm highly pissed off, frustrated and angered by myself, but occasionally I catch a glimpse of this girl in the mirror and I think, who's she? She's much stronger and more capable than I am, more talented, better looking even. When did I become her?
And yes, I sound up myself. So I'll mention the other days, when the mirror shows me a fat, ugly girl who can't do anything, never finishes anything, fails every goal she or anybody else has ever set her. Especially those private goals that don't seem to matter to other people, but are the centre of her own little universe. Why are compliments forgotten and insults remembered? Why does it take so long to build confidence and so little to destroy it?
And on that note I run out of things to say. I'll be back at some point in the future to tease some more words into optimistically interesting sentences.
Molly x
Or rather, we think we do. Or maybe we actually do. Maybe we only know what we want to do right now, right this second, and we have no idea what lies beyond then, or maybe we have our whole lives mapped out. Maybe we know exactly what we want from the future, but we have no idea how to reach out and grab it. And maybe we don't have a clue. Maybe we're having opportunities and ideas thrust upon us left, right, and centre, and it's confusing the hell out of us. Maybe we're finding passions and talents we never even knew we had and we have no idea what to do about them.
When you find something and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's what you want to spend your life doing, you want to do it now. You don't want any other subjects or distractions getting in the way. I was lucky enough to be one of those people who found that elusive instantaneous 'click', that moment where something sparks inside your brain and you sit up straight, thinking, knowing 'this is it'. But I'm not one of those people who finds exams particularly easy, so getting to a point where I can do only English Language (i.e. at university) is going to be hard. It's very irritating really, knowing you could excel at something if only you didn't have to worry about other things as well.
What really gets on my nerves is when people tell me how lucky I am. Yes, I am lucky. I know that. I have had opportunities this summer alone that some people don't get in a lifetime. I've got (to quote my mother) 'a lovely family, a nice secure home in a lovely environment, you're gorgeous, and you're healthy (apparently)'. And yes, of course I know that. Of course I know I could be much worse off. I know that there are people all over the world who are less fortunate than me. But seriously, I'm still entitled to a bad mood every once in a while! 'What exactly have you got to worry about?' she says. 'Your life is perfect.' And oh, mother, if only you knew exactly how unperfect my life is. And she gives me a list of all the things she has to do - and I appreciate how busy she is, of course I do, and I'm sorry I don't always have time to tidy my room but frankly I rate passing my exams more highly. And gah, when she says 'I know you're not doing work up there' - well of course I am! How could I pass if I didn't? Obviously I'm not doing work all the time, but I'm not a robot. It's all right for her, she already knows where her life is going and she's got everything she needs all planned out. She's my mum. I mean, nuff said, right? Though sometimes I wonder about who she used to be and what she really wanted from life...
Sometimes I want to write, but I don't know what. The inspiration is there, within me, but I can't find the right words to express it - it's the most frustrating feeling in the world. I feel that way now; that's why I'm here. The whole reason of this blog's existence is for moments like this, so that I don't have to bore any of my friends with my pretentious sentimentality.
Primary school. Secondary school. College. Education. Why does it go so fast? Why is it that people consider the perspective of children and young adults invalid simply because they're young? We have to go through so many experiences, so many learning curves, throughout the years of our schooling that we grow up far more quickly than perhaps we should... because if we don't, we're ridiculed for it. Funny, isn't it, that sheep are the considered the most brainless creatures in existence, and yet they are the metaphor we use to describe the majority of the human race. Funny and yet so understandable. But I don't want to be a sheep. I can't baaa. And trust me, I've tried. To baa, I mean, as well as to fit in. But I just don't. I know I've said all this before but I can't understand why it took me seventeen years to realize that it's okay to be different - good, in fact.
Yes, I don't dress like the 'popular' people. I don't go out every weekend. I'm friends with my freaking teachers, for God's sake, and that's pretty weird. But I like it. I like... myself. Don't get me wrong: I'm highly pissed off, frustrated and angered by myself, but occasionally I catch a glimpse of this girl in the mirror and I think, who's she? She's much stronger and more capable than I am, more talented, better looking even. When did I become her?
And yes, I sound up myself. So I'll mention the other days, when the mirror shows me a fat, ugly girl who can't do anything, never finishes anything, fails every goal she or anybody else has ever set her. Especially those private goals that don't seem to matter to other people, but are the centre of her own little universe. Why are compliments forgotten and insults remembered? Why does it take so long to build confidence and so little to destroy it?
And on that note I run out of things to say. I'll be back at some point in the future to tease some more words into optimistically interesting sentences.
Molly x
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)