Uhh, hello it has been four years since my gang and I bid farewell to the hallowed halls of American Fork High school.
It is so weird how four years can seem like three seconds. To be completely honest I feel like I'm having a quarter-life crisis three years early. It is seriously so depressing knowing that I'll be turning Twenty-Three before this year ends. But why? Twenty-three is a grand age. People in their fifties would kill to be this age.
Everything is constantly changes. Our apartment, the city we live in, the classes we are taking, the jobs we hold, our friends, even our family. It's all changing, and it is a little scary to not having anything permanent. People who say high school is where you are trying to figure out who you are and what you want in life are LYING. The Soul Searching chapters of your life haven't even begun yet. They begin in college, and get ready children, because it can get a little bumpy. The future is right at our feet, and even for those of us that have a plan, it's still scary.
TWENTY-THREE
So why are me and my peers dreading the ever increasing climb into our twenties? I have a couple thoughts on this.
It's a time of instability
It's a time to watch your peers change course
Growing up together everything was pretty much the same. We were all moving up at the same time together, we generally had to learn the same stuff, and with the exception of summer (even then though) we were at the same place for seven hours a day.
Now that has changed.
High school was the last gate keeping us together. I'm sure you can tell me a hundred different stories about your friends and where they are now, and how much they have changed from high school. Which is awesome, but it's also the problem. Since Kindergarten you have had a big group of people who are on the same journey as you. Now, its just you and you have to face this world on your own. Hello, Scary!
Life becomes a Race, and everyone is watching
Some of you are probably going to disagree with me, but I swear there are some of our peers who are out there trying to live the most life in the shortest time possible. It's crazy to me! But let me explain. This is not a dump on any one's life. Everyone has the right to live their life they way they want to!
I see kids I graduated from high school with and they are already teachers, or working on their Master's degree, or moving across the globe, and it's crazy! I have no problem with this, but usually if they are already this far ahead, then it means they have taken the fast track to get through school. Our college years are going to be some of the best years of our life. Why zip through them and risk having regrets? I'm all about progress and efficiency, but I also don't want to look back on my life and wish I had paid more attention to the experiences I had.
It's not just with kids whipping through school. I swear there are like five kids I graduated high school with and they are already having their third kid. WHAT? WHY? Why do you need three kids by the age of 22/23? It seems so ludicrous to me? Like Bam, get married right out of high school, bam three months later get pregnant, bam one year later have another baby and buy a house. Why the urge to live ten years of life in two years? Why do you want to settle down and seal the next forty years of your life? Maybe it's just me and my inability to wrap my head around that kind of commitment, but it's just seems like way too much way to quickly.
THIS ISN'T A COMPETITION.
You have your whole life to be married and to create a family and build your dream home, why do you have to do it when there is so many other things that you could do now that you won't be able to do later? I have so many friends who are on this path and I love them. I love their families, and their children, and their homes. One of the things that make me happiest in life, is holding one of my best friend's babies and just loving on her/him. I love it, and it makes me happy to see my friends happy and getting everything they wanted. I even sometimes wish I had that, but I know I have other dreams that can't wait and I want those too. I think also I get irritated with this because I feel like married people think they are better than everyone else because their married. Ugh, this is not true! I am totally not against families, but I am against trying to cram eighty years of life in the 20 to 25 year age range.
But maybe those people already know who they are, and have figured out what they really want in life. Maybe I don't see that because that isn't the conclusion I have come to. I'm happy with where I am, I hope you're happy with where you are. That's really all that matters anyway. It's what is so great about personal agency, we can do whatever we want, and no one else can force us to do something we don't want to.
