Saturday 18 June 2016

turning seventeen

I started typing this on my bed one day before my seventeenth birthday, thinking about the things that haven't happened to me yet.
I didn't get a Hogwarts letter when I was 11. That's fine. I can deal with it. There was no satyr to tell me I  am a half god. Well, that's cool too, seriously. I'm almost not sixteen anymore. I haven't started a revolution yet, nor overtrown a governement, nor do I have a sparkly vampire boyfriend, nor have I defeated an evil force that could destroy the world. As of tomorrow, I'd be considered an adult in the Wizarding World, and to be quite honest, it terrifies me.
I already am older than the main characters in my favourite book. Tomorrow, I'll be older than the main characters in most of the books I own, which is even more terrifying. I'm almost done with school, one year from now I'll have graduated and then I'm supposed to be able to take care of myself. I can definitely survive alone in our house for a few days. I can cook a few things, enough not to starve (maybe not enough for a balanced nutrition, but we'll ignore that), but completely being on my own and depend on myself? That's scarier than any horror film I've seen, and I've seen a bunch. 
I'm almost seventeen. Friends of mine have already graduted high school, friends of mine are already going to uni and being functioning adults, but I'm not sure I can be one. I've never actually lived on my own before. I've never mastered any instrument, though I've tried four up to this point.

While this probably seems very silly to most of you: I'm terrified. I am so afraid of the world that sometimes I think I'll never make it out of this small country village in the middle of nowhere, that I'll stay here forever and rot away between the fields and old houses. I'm terrified that I'm not good enough to make any difference in the world. That what I'll do won't matter, that I won't matter. I'm already almost seventeen, I haven't had any impact on the world yet and every day there's the chance that something horrible happens and I won't make it another year and then I wouldn't have done anything important yet. To say it with Orla Gartland: "I'm not sure I've got the heart for this."
But: in my almost seventeen years I've read well over 600 books, named at least 20 cats and one dog, travelled to four countries (not including my own) without my parents and finished writing two 100+ pages long stories. I've filled nine diaries, been published twice with very very short stories, I have made memories worth about 35 film rolls alone in the last three or four years, I've made a bunch of new friends in the past year, I've finally started to feel really good about myself. I finally cut my hair, after wanting to for maybe two years already, I've learnt that sometimes you just gotta. No buts, you just gotta do stuff. If I'd told my thirteen-year old self that one day before I turn seventeen I would still be here, that I'd be mostly happy and if not happy then at least content, she would have laughed, she would have thrown a few swear words at me and told me not to bullshit her. But I'm here, I'm fine, and while I might not have changed the world yet, I might one day, and, as much as the future scares me: I think I might actually gonna be completely fine.

2 comments:

  1. Girl, you do not need to worry. I know it feels like you only have one more year before you gotta get things figured out, but you're still so young! I'm sure you've heard that before, but really. I'm 23 and still don't know what I'm doing. ;)

    Plus you have done SO much in life already. That list is amazing. You're doing well and I'm sure you'll continue to do so!


    Nicole | explosive bagel

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words! All the love to you!

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