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
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