he looked me in the eyes and told me to ~grow up~

The pressure to act a certain way, especially when you turn a certain age is very ingrained in our minds (for reasons I cannot entirely grasp). You turn 18, and suddenly you are an “adult”, thrown into this mini adult world of college, living alone, budgeting, and trying to function without parents or rules or real guidelines. Then you turn 21, and you can drink, and ~really~ become an adult. I mean you have to look old enough to go out and get drinks, but then you go home and get into bed in matching pajamas, and watch Ratatouille, with stuffed animals surrounding your head (well maybe that one is just me). THEN you turn 23 (aka me), and you are graduating college, looking for a real adult job, and you’re supposed to know what the fuck it is that you want to do with your life. I mean am I supposed to know what I want to do/be for the rest of my life right now? I have ideas, sure, but concretes, absolutes? No fucking way. I barely know what to eat on a day to day basis. I get stressed when my roommate orders something different than me, worried that I may have made a bad decision on a fucking burrito.

So yeah, here I am, one of my biggest daily decisions being about what’s going in my burrito, yet I am about to graduate from college. WOW.  My mom keeps telling me “be excited, this is a huge accomplishment” which is true. But then my boss keeps saying “get ready for a wake up call of your life, a big dark grey cloud is looming, and all the fun is slowly going to vanish away”. Two very different sides, which is making me all the more stressed. I guess they are both right, like damn I am graduating from college, technically could be done with school forever if I wanted (but hell nah, gonna drag myself through law school still), which is fucking awesome, but also holy shit I am about to graduate and be in the ~real world~ with real responsibilities and bills, and no longer pretending to be an adult but actually having to be one. Though this summer has started slower than it takes for the person who was walking in front of me to get up the damn stairs, soon enough I’ll be packing my life away and moving to LA, getting a real time, ~big girl~ job, and living in an apartment far away from my mother (who sometimes still does my laundry). Part of me feels ready, like a physical chapter is finally closing, and a new one is being written. But the other part of me cannot stop thinking about this dark grey cloud over my head, and almost wants to sabotage it all.  I keep feeling myself going into this spiral and trying to ruin any chances of my own happiness. For example, instead of focusing on my future, and my plans. I decide to focus on trivial things like BOYS, drinking until I blackout, the Jonas Brothers getting back together and going on tour (hint my birthday is the 24th of August everyone), and basically anything that distracts me from real life and real things. I guess maybe I’m scared. Scared of no security, scared of being this ~real~ person, scared of not accomplishing everything I want, scared of failing, just plain ~scared~. So instead, I think about the brown haired boy who lives states away, who’s smile floats around my mind, and who’s witty accents seem to make me laugh even when he’s not around. I miss him, I ~really~ miss him, and I guess I’d rather sit here, hurting my heart, missing him, than think about myself and my daunting future. I’ll watch old movies that make me cry or stay up until the sunrises just so I don’t have to face the inevitable fact that I am ~growing up~. I don’t even like writing down that phrase, let alone saying it… “growing up”. Like what? What does that even mean? Yes, I am about to graduate, and that is an accomplishment, but it’s okay that I am ~scared~, it’s okay if I don’t know exactly what I am going to do and when I’m going to do it. It’s okay if sometimes I’d rather focus on the boy who has my heart than what judge I am going to be a clerk for (yah baby get ready for this btw). I know it’s scary to feel like you are ~losing time~ or not where you should be, but that is bullshit. The whole “should be” thing doesn’t exist. Just because you see other people being successful and seem to have their lives figured out (ya...ok), doesn’t mean you have to. Just because I’m about to graduate doesn’t mean I have to know exactly what the rest of my life looks like. I mean sure, that would be kinda sick, but also boring. I love the spontaneous days where I can’t stop smiling, or the road trips in the summer, blasting old pop songs while my hair flies over my eyes. I don’t want to plan every single day of my life out.

I guess I need to keep telling myself all of this when I get into this self-sabotage state of mind. Instead of ruining everything(which I ~love~ to do clearly), I need to just pace myself out. I need to give myself time to breathe, to realize wow, after devoting my whole entire life to school work, literally whole entire life, I am going to finally be able to take a breath.  I won’t have to go to classes, or study for tests, I won’t have to stay up doing homework or buy adderall off some guy who’s name I can’t remember .Yeah I mean I’ll be working and being a ~real person~, but I finally get somewhat of a break, a break to breathe and to figure out what my plan ~could~ be.

I see a lot of friends getting into these relationships, settling down, getting out of their hook up phases, throwing in the towel on the sexcapade filled weekends, thinking about marriage, life, their damn 401k plans, and I am over here trying to kiss 10 boys before I move across the country or see how many times I can get naked and jump into the Boston Harbor in a night. I guess what I am trying to say is, everyone is different. I have felt this pressure in the past, I mean we all have, but if I don’t know a definite plan or have mapped out the next 10 years of my life, that is OKAY. If you want to switch majors or jobs, or move to another city with barely a plan, just do it. If you want to text the guy with the pretty eyes, or dance with your friends to the Mamma Mia soundtrack while downing shots of cheap tequila, just do it. Life is really short, and as far as we know we only get one of them (lol this is the most cliche thing I have ever said but idccccc), so why would I live following some path I am not entirely happy with? Sometimes I want to wear vans, and go skateboarding (ha as if I really know how to do this) or rollerblading, looking like a damn 12 year old boy. Other days I want to get all ~fancy~, go to a nice bar, order a cosmopolitan and sip on it, with my classy acrylic nails, and feel like the badass woman that I am. Why do I have to choose between these? Why do I have to be this adult form of myself, when I still very much like a kid sometimes. I want to be a writer, I want to be taken seriously, but I also want to be happy and look like a mess sometimes. Is is okay to be both? Or do I have to ~grow up~(fuck you to the guy who told me this in a serious way) and just choose?