If someone were to tell me when I was 12 that I was going to miss these days when I grew up, I would’ve never in a million years believed them. I am 19 now, still young, yet I miss the simple days more than ever.
The days where nothing mattered, where stress didn’t even cross my mind because I didn’t even know it existed, where I was always so excited to play outside or watch my favorite movie a million times and never get sick of it. Everyone always says how much they hate high school, or hate being so young, and they can’t wait to have the freedom of being 18 and doing whatever they want, I would know, it’s all I ever wished for when I was a kid.
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Yet now I find myself regretting it more and more, and one day so will you too.
College is not as fun as it seems to be. Yes, you have the freedom when you turn 18, yes, you aren’t constricted legally to listen to adults anymore, but now you're surrounded with even more challenges.
There’s bills, loans, debt, college work is not like high school work, I miss the days where I could go in and take a test that I never studied for and get an A. Now in college you could study for multiple hours and still end up with a 50. Once you get a job, that ends up taking up your life, you have responsibilities, there’s no more letting your parents do things for you. There’s no more time to just stop and be a kid anymore because we aren’t kids anymore.
Now don’t get me wrong, yes growing up is exciting, you can start planning your future, start a career, start a family, get your own house. But in order to get those things, you will face numerous amounts of stressful obstacles just to achieve each and every one of them.
The moments we enjoyed so much as little kids, no longer can happen for us. Why? Because there isn’t enough time in the day, and because we've grown up. We spent years of our lives wishing that we could get to this point, for what?
Most of us now can see that being an adult is not what we thought. Things don’t get easier, things aren’t simple. Those times as a kid, where we would be playing outside for hours, or having sleepovers with our friends and staying up all night watching movies or just talking, they can’t happen anymore. Time is now going faster than it ever has.
Time doesn’t slow down for anyone, every year seems to be going by faster and faster. Our lives soon enough will be falling into a daily routine that we will have to follow every day for the rest of our lives because that’s just simply how life works. I wish I could go back and tell myself to live in the moment, and stop wishing for the future, because you never get that time back.
For people who are just starting out in high school, for the people who still have yet to learn and to grow, here’s a bit of advice. I know high school sucks, waking up every day at 6 am and having to sit in a classroom for 8 hours a day, and I know having to listen to your parent’s rules can be annoying and frustrating, but appreciate it. Appreciate the little things. You don’t have to worry about bills, or the stress of a full-time career, or college work. You still have years to enjoy, to enjoy high school and to not wish it away. You still have time to enjoy hanging out with your friends, to not have to manage your time to a strict schedule, you still have time to enjoy being young.
And for the people who are like me, still technically young but technically an adult…Enjoy this. Enjoy the little moments of being young that you still have left. Enjoy still having the summers off because once you get a job, depending on what you do, you definitely won’t have full summers off.
Enjoy the present, don’t wish to be 3 years older, don’t wish any more time away… Because when we are older, and we don’t have much time on earth left, we will regret that our life was wasted wishing away time. Time is precious, time is limited, live every single day as if you were to never wake up tomorrow… Stop living in the future, and live for the present. Look at what you have now, and enjoy it. Because one day, it will be too late.
