With my birthday rapidly approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about the tight situation my age places me in. I currently stand on the edge of girlhood dipping my toes in the pool of womanhood through college visits and driving practice. Bound to an environment I’ve spent a good amount of my life preparing to be ejected from, I study and learn from the adults I hope to be like when I “grow up,” sophistication and immaturity mingling within my cells. It can be infuriating at times. I think to myself often, Why can’t I just start living my own life already? But I am already living my own life; I just need to gain enough experience to unlock the independence I crave, like a video game.
One year of being eligible to drive. One year until being eligible to vote. Seventeen.
As excited as I am for my seventeenth rotation around the sun to begin, I am also aware that the actual date of my turnover will not be the most splendiferous. This is because my calendar is already lined up with numerous exciting adventures, primarily concerts, extending even into next February. This more than makes up for the lost year of 2020, when all my plans had to be cancelled or moved online thanks to systems that place profits over people and people who have been brainwashed into agreeing with that.
I hope to, in a manner, undergo a more positive form of brainwashing in the coming months. It will be refreshing to have conversations with like-minded people in person and to be enlightened by live performances that no livestream can truly match. Experiences such as these are like hearty salads for the brain; faux news and fanaticism are McDonald’s. My teenaged brain is still being molded by the world around it, so I might as well ensure that my influences are positive ones. With each of these experiential gifts comes more of the know-how that I strive to harness, which is worth so much more than any physical object.
And now, we wait.
Tags: adolescence, age, anticipation, birthdays, new experiences, the future