I am nineteen years old. If all goes well, in about three months, I will be twenty years old. Technically I have been an adult for almost twenty-one months, but I’ve never really felt like one, ever. Many of my friends say they’ve felt like an adult long before they legally were one, but not I. I loved being a child so much that I never want to stop. I won’t be an adult unless I am allowed to do cartwheels and play games. I feel young. I feel like I still need to be cut slack. I feel like I still don’t know any better.
It’s inevitable though. I did childhood, I’m done. There’s only one place for me now, and I’ll remain there until I die. Adulthood. It’s just a matter of getting there, or accepting that I am there, and I’m in no rush. I hopefully have many many more years of adulthood ahead of me, but my youth will soon come to an irreversible end. I’m savoring these last bits…!
Lately I’ve been having moments like: whoa. I live here. Here in this house, without my parents. I have a housekey and a frying pan. I grocery shop and wash my sheets regularly. If I didn’t come home at night, it would take a while for people to realize I was gone. Even right now…no one who knows me could easily find me. I can be independent here, which is something I adore.
I’m almost ready. I have been having many recurrent thoughts of the future, envisioning myself having a job in someplace or another, paying bills, cooking and cleaning, saving up money to go see someplace else. I can do that, is what I’ve realized. Which is how I know I’m almost there.
I don’t think we should have to be one or the other. I’m just not ready to call it quits. The stages must be a sliding scale. Continuous. And all I can know is, I’m progressing.
