Growing Up: Part 1
As of 2 weeks ago, I am officially a senior. And although it's all still new, already my vision of senior year has been altered.
My whole life I envied seniors, looked at them as if they were these lucky bastards that hit the jackpot and got one year free of responsibility, filled with fun and borderline recklessness. I guess I wasn't wrong, but it didn't take me long to understand that senior year wasn't all that it was cut out to be: It's like you spend an amazing summer being a kid, doing stupid things with no worries whatsoever and then one day you're thrown into a pool of college applications, driving lessons and final exams with no warnings. It's scary and exhilarating and more than a little challenging at times. You want to hold onto your childhood, to being a kid who's mom made all of their appointments for them, although you feel it slipping away from you, one phone call after the other. It's like being thrown into the deep end of the pool with no floaties: You only have your instinct of survival and your parents' encouraging words to help you stay afloat.
When I was a kid, I used to play adult (as, I'm sure, all of you who are reading this did): I'd pretend to take meetings and have an assistant and would covertly wear white nail polish because I thought it made me look more grown up. It was fun because it wasn't my life, because I could play grown up in the morning and then astronaut in the evening or something, like being a grown up was a career path I could choose to pass out on. I wish it was that easy.
I do realize I'm being a tad dramatic and it's a long way off before I become a full-fledged adult with pantsuits and an email account that I actually check, but it's still really scary to think about.
A Part 2 will come at the end of my senior year, just to give you-and myself-some perspective (I'm hoping it's a really positive one because this one is a downer)
What's something in your near future that scares the shit out of you?
My whole life I envied seniors, looked at them as if they were these lucky bastards that hit the jackpot and got one year free of responsibility, filled with fun and borderline recklessness. I guess I wasn't wrong, but it didn't take me long to understand that senior year wasn't all that it was cut out to be: It's like you spend an amazing summer being a kid, doing stupid things with no worries whatsoever and then one day you're thrown into a pool of college applications, driving lessons and final exams with no warnings. It's scary and exhilarating and more than a little challenging at times. You want to hold onto your childhood, to being a kid who's mom made all of their appointments for them, although you feel it slipping away from you, one phone call after the other. It's like being thrown into the deep end of the pool with no floaties: You only have your instinct of survival and your parents' encouraging words to help you stay afloat.
When I was a kid, I used to play adult (as, I'm sure, all of you who are reading this did): I'd pretend to take meetings and have an assistant and would covertly wear white nail polish because I thought it made me look more grown up. It was fun because it wasn't my life, because I could play grown up in the morning and then astronaut in the evening or something, like being a grown up was a career path I could choose to pass out on. I wish it was that easy.
I do realize I'm being a tad dramatic and it's a long way off before I become a full-fledged adult with pantsuits and an email account that I actually check, but it's still really scary to think about.
A Part 2 will come at the end of my senior year, just to give you-and myself-some perspective (I'm hoping it's a really positive one because this one is a downer)
What's something in your near future that scares the shit out of you?
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