On growing up // 10 02 2013

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