Teenage Veracity

it's scary to grow up

To my younger self, you will regret how you wished time would move so fast so that you'd become older and do all the things that grown-ups do. 

You would think that as you grow older, you are free to do everything that you want to do. Well, I hate to break it to you, but it's not going to be as free as you think because look at me now.

It feels like yesterday. When all I ever think about is what I should play. Every day is filled with running, playing, and crying. Every day is spent under the sun, and I won't even complain. I just wait until my mother calls my name to eat. Every babble is worth something, even if it isn't. I never knew that I had already tasted the real freedom that will only come when you are young. 

It had a different meaning back then. I give it a different meaning now.

My hand rests on a knob. I don't need to knock. Taking a step, slowly walking towards reality. As I'm slowly opening the door, I can feel my hands shaking and my feet freezing, but I can't step back and shut it out. I looked over my shoulder and saw the candles lined up—candles that I had already blown—that led me up to the door. As much as I want to let them light again, I don't have the fire anymore, and besides, I still have a lot of candles to blow out.

It's scary to grow up. A lot of reasons formed the fear that we were hiding inside. 

In a snap, we are forced to accept things on account of growing up. It's just the way it is. It's improbable to be fearless about it. We know what we should do, but we don't know how we would do it or if we are capable of it. It's scary due to the fact that we are now responsible for our own actions. Whatever mistakes we make will be faced with the scrutiny of others, and we are scared of that.

Growing older means having more responsibilities. I'll be piling up new responsibilities on my back, and I should be vigilant to not let them fall or break. As I am at the end of my teen epoch, I'm starting to carry it now. I'm on my way to becoming numb just to maintain my posture, and I can only move a little. I can't scream all I want like I used to, for they will scream back louder. Every tomorrow meets me with greater responsibilities, and I can't even say 'no'.

It's scary to know that you don't know. We are on our own now, and we don't even know who we are yet. Yet the world perceives our reasons as excuses. 

Day by day, as our age increased, it became the criteria for the path we should be focusing on. You are playing one moment, and suddenly the attitude of playfulness disappears. We need to take everything seriously right now. What we do now is the complete answer to what our future will be.

I still have a lot of growing to do, but I'm forced to grow up, to make decisions for myself, and to sacrifice certain things that make up who I am. 

Oftentimes, I just don't know what to do, and this reason caused me to receive a lesson from the universe. Still, I don't understand, and it made me want to run to the time where I don't know that the word responsibility exists.

Growing up also means separation from your family. It gives you an unfathomable weight as you witness the people you grew up with go on their separate paths as they are also growing up. 

You are growing up with them, but they grew up earlier than you. They are now taking a new step toward change. There's a beat of sting as you slowly watch them go away. The sting gets worse as you realize that nothing will ever be the same again. You can only miss them.

We not only carry fear as we grow older, but it also comes with sadness.

You can't do anything but replay the days that once were, like the days when you were all sitting at a dining table. I didn't remember when it was the last, seeing that I thought it would last forever. 

All I know is that we used to be younger, and now we are getting older. At this time, you are trying to find the time to be together, even once in a while. Then they'll leave again, or they'll leave forever.

As you reach another year, you are required to be thankful, but how come I am more scared? 

It's scary to think about the days that lie ahead. It's scary to work hard to make the life that you want to live, and what if you'll never live the way you want to live? How will I manage to control everything and everyone around me if they slowly fade away? How can I deal with the reality of life that awaits me?

It's scary to deal with the pressure of society as I'm climbing the ladder of aging. The older you get, the more people you meet, and their presence might be a blessing or a lesson. 

Time will also come when I might make our own family, and that means another level of responsibility because you are in charge of their lives as you let them take charge of yours also. I never know what the weight of becoming a partner and a parent is like, and it's scary to face it.

It's also scary to know that growing older means you are closer to withering. The people who love you either leave you sooner or forget that you exist. The time will come when people will never know that you draw breath and will never care about you because you are closer to the deadline of your life. 

It'll only be years from now before you succumb to fragility. It's scary to face the consequences of your bad habits when you're young and suffer as if you deserve it. As you are suffering, you are slowly digging up your grave, and in no time you'll be lying six feet underground.

Time moves too fast. I'll be twenty soon, and it'll be no time before I'm thirty, then in the blink of an eye I'll be forty, then fifty. It's all just numbers, but its impact costs an infinite number of words. 

I'm getting old, and I don't know what to do. I'm going to take responsibility for my life from now on. Every step I take is sacred but they don't know I'm scared. I am now growing older. I don't know who I will become as I get older, and that's scary.