I used to be so afraid of growing up, but nowadays, it doesn’t seem all that bad. The freedom of being able to make your own decisions and do what you want is the most enticing for me. On the other hand, I am slightly anxious about growing up, too. The uncertainty the future holds is quite nerve-racking. As you grow up, you learn so many lessons you wouldn’t even expect to need to know. Growing up feels like a constant trial and error. You try something new until it sticks. You make a mistake, and then, you learn from it.

One major milestone for me was getting my license. When I first started driving alone, I couldn’t fathom the fact that I had the control and knowledge to drive a car now. A car that I had sat in the back seat of for so long. Driving too many long road trips, to dance competitions, and even morning school car rides. I was now in the front seat, hands on the steering wheel, my favorite songs playing, and I was moving forward. I had taken a leap forward closer into my adulthood.  

Another way of putting this is that I am just overall excited to see what the future holds. With that comes growing up; you gain knowledge and experience about life. I have my days, though, where I am super anxious about the future and what will happen. Sometimes, I just want to skip through to 10 years from now and see where I end up, but that completely defeats the purpose of it all. 

I do enjoy being a teenager, but I don’t love it. I just feel that I have outgrown being a kid. I feel like I have outgrown the Peter Pan mindset of feeling like we never want to grow up. I remember watching that movie as a kid, and it used to completely resonate with me. Now, I feel the opposite: I want to change and experience the world as an adult.

I don’t say any of this because I don’t like my life now, but I am very ready for some change. For example, high school is getting boring, and I am ready for my next chapter in life, which is college. I will be able to focus on what I want to learn and what I want to spend my time doing. 

Overall, I am ready to grow up, but of course, I am nervous. Honestly, I am looking forward to the change and the independence I will gain. Time is flying by and as soon as I know it, I will be in my 20s regretting I ever wrote this, but at least then, I will for sure know at that moment my perspective on life has changed and I have successfully grown up a little bit. 

With that being said, I have only about one year left of my high school experience. I am going to enjoy it, take in every moment, and love being a kid for a little bit longer. Sometimes, I get sad thinking about how I won’t be a kid forever, but that is the beauty of it all. I am going to make memories now so I can look back at them when I am older and remember what it was like to be a kid and not a grownup.