Tessa on getting older.
Taylor Swift - Fifteen
Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now.
You know, that thing.. growing up..
I used to
think I sucked. It sucked soo badly.
It was the worst thing. And why, you ask? Because you can’t do anything about
it. It just happens.. And that, my friend, used to suck really
bad.
But now
that I look back.. Sometime I still think it sucks and that’s because I’m still
doing it.. I’m still growing up.
I remember from when I was like 14 or 15 I wanted to grow up so badly. Just because
I would be able to do more stuff and achieve more. It just seemed cooler be
older, because you could go study, you could travel the world. My 15 year
old-self thought that anything was possible at the age of 18 or older.
I had this
picture of myself in my head, of how I’d look when I was 18. I had a whole
wardrobe sorted; what style I would have and what music I would listen to. And none
of it really worked out that way. When I was 18 I thought about that picture, and really.. I was just
me.. Changed, yes. But not really the dream-adult that I thought I was going to
be. I was still growing a whole lot at the age of 18. I still am, and I may
sound very old writing this.. But the truth is: I’m only 19.
19 and
growing up. And let me tell you a secret: sometime I still think it sucks. It
sucks to find yourself looking for answers to questions, you thought you were going to know by now. It sucks to find yourself looking in a mirror and not
knowing exactly what you think of yourself, or ever recognizing yourself. It
sucks that sometime you still need your mom’s shoulder, which you will probably
always going to need, to cry on and let your heart out. It sucks, because all I
want to have is the ability to fight life on my own. But I figured that one
out: I can’t.
I spend a
great deal of my youth, form the age of about 12, like most teenagers do, figuring
out who I was, who I was going to be and who I wanted to be. Asking myself
really tough questions, the ones that I couldn’t know the answer to. I asked a
lot of 14 year-old-me, I wanted me to grow up harder, sooner. I was also spending an awful lot of time
thinking about the future. A lot of crappy things happened when I was around
that age and I spend a lot of time escaping from everything in my mind. Wishing
I could escape real life.
But then
again: I couldn’t. I had to get through it, and I got through it, because I’m
here, in my bedroom, writing this.
But now I know that I’m not fighting alone. I have my parents, I have my
friends, I have my writing and I have God to help me get through it.
So I hope
you got something out of this.
It’s okay
to spend some time dreaming about your future, but don’t forget to live in the
present. Because whether you like it or not: everything else will be moving
forward, while you’re wandering somewhere in a far-away land.
And
something I have to remind myself almost every day: you don’t always have to
fight life, sometimes you can go with it. Because life isn’t your enemy, it can
be your friend, just as time can be.
So shake hands, introduce yourself and be gentle with the time you have. It’s
something precious, something that will be gone in a blink, if you don’t be
careful enough.
So, learn that growing up isn't that bad.
There’s
this beautiful quote that says: ‘Life is what happens to you when you’re busy
making other plans.’ Keep that in mind.
Love
always,
19 year old
Hannah
