I have come to realise it, as I come ever closer to my 20th birthday this year, that whether I like it or not I am growing up and growing up is a funny thing.
When you are young you wish to be 16, 17 or 18, or even an adult because you think everything will be worked out. You can do what you want when you want and you don't have to listen to anyone. Oh how far from the truth that really is.
If I'm honest growing up SUCKS!
Yes there are a few pros, I can pretty much do what I want, when I want and I have the money to do most of what I want. There are a few more to the pro list, but for the purpose of the blog post, it sucks, it really, really sucks!
So here are a few reasons why it sucks!
1. I am expected at nearly 20 years old to have my life sorted, to have the big decisions made and to know what I want to do and what I want to be. In fact to a certain point I have no idea.
Lucky for me I have always wanted to be a journalist and run my own business. I am a person who believes in making opportunities for myself, rather than waiting around for one to just stroll pass. That doesn't happen or at least not enough to base your life's work on. However, hard work and determination also only gets you so far, because if the opportunity, the money or the stars aren't aligned it won't happen away.
2. I am expected to know things! I mean, all sorts of things from banking to insurance and how to fix my car to politics.
I didn't mind school; in fact I would say I quite enjoyed it. However, I don't feel in the slightest it has prepared me for finances or a lot of day-to-day things in life.
I luckily had to study politics as a part of journalism, but I can understand why many who haven't find the whole thing a little bewildering.
3. When growing up you lose friends, from merely just growing apart as we all grow into different people, or we grow apart because some people don't seen to age at all. It's a sad but true fact.
4. It's really hard to make friends!
See the opposite side also gets you too! I would say I am a relatively shy person, not as much as when I was at school, but I still don't throw myself head first into a conversation with a stranger without some point coming across a little awkward. But making friends is about 100 times harder when out of school than in it (which was hard enough might I add!), because when at school you would stick together as you had to spend a lot of time together. Yet in the real world, there isn't that same mentality.
5. Responsibilities. Now I have responsibilities!
Whether it is financial or personal, I have responsibilities that I can't hide from or get my parents to do. I have to deal with them. Now I know I have had responsibilities for sometime and I am ok with that. As I would say, I am quite a responsible person, but I am also very aware that over the next few years I will have more and that is a little bit scary.
One thing I am certainly not going to be responsible for is catching the spider in the room that nobody known where it came from. I'm sorry but you are on your own with that one! Nope never!
6. School doesn't END! Now I am not talking learning, we all learn over the years and we all need to. No I am talking about the social side of it.
Even in the adult world people continue to bully, isolate and gossip, just as they did at school. The only difference now is, it's meaner and the stakes at the end of it are higher!
7. It's the final one! My life over the next five to ten years is probably going to dramatically change and I am not sure if I'm ready or want it too!
When growing up your life changes a lot from moving school to leaving education all together. I have come to the realisation that my life over the next few years could really change, from where I live, to my family and friends, and that is a very scare thought indeed!
But I want to know that I'm not alone. What are you scared of about growing up or what were you scared about growing up? What turned out to be not so scary and what was even scarier than thought?
And most important, what advice would you now give to your younger self-growing up, or even someone else?