going seventeen

 

I'll be straight: I really did not want to turn seventeen. The older I get, the more I recognise how I have wasted my youth. I can only be a teenager for three more years, and I haven't been making the most of it. All the promises I made to myself when turning sixteen are broken, and it makes me hesitate to make any promises to myself this year. Alas, time is not mine to control, and I am now seventeen, whether I like it or not.

During my birthday party, I had my friends write advice about being seventeen, seeing as all of them are older than me. According to them, nothing about being seventeen makes you feel young and sweet. It is apparently much better than being sixteen, but you'll still be depressed as all hell. To quote Leia (whose hands are pictured above), "it sucked being seventeen :( good luck!" Clearly, my friends' positive attitudes helped with my anxieties about growing up.

In the grand scheme of things, of course, being seventeen isn't all that old. You can't even drink yet (legally), nor vote. Perhaps it is just my own view of the world, then, that affects how I feel, as it does most people. When you are so close to adulthood, you are no longer free of responsibility, but you are still too young to have much control over your life. You're trapped.

I celebrated my birthday on the Saturday before the day itself. It wasn't as elaborate as my sixteenth, but I honestly enjoyed it a lot more. I forced everyone to take a Kahoot quiz about me, and made it significantly more difficult than last year's. I rigged it too, so Leia would win. And she did. I did this to show how fair and genuine of a person I am. After the super rigged quiz we decorated cupcakes, which is a mature activity for mature people to do, and the perfect thing for my super mature seventeenth birthday party. It was genuinely a great party, and I've already started planning for my big 18th next year.

On my birthday itself, my A Level results came out, and they were surprisingly good. Maybe that's the reason I've been in such a good mood lately. I actually have the opportunity to apply to universities I could have never dreamed of getting into.

I think the main reason I was afraid to turn older was less because I was afraid of the unknown, and more because I was afraid of regretting not having done enough. Most films targeted towards teenagers are about sixteen and seventeen year olds, and my life so far has been nothing like the movies. But perhaps I should change my perspective. I should take this as an opportunity to make the most out of the one year I have left at my disposal, and create those memories that I will look back at fondly.

For the first time in a long time, I have hope for the future, and I feel like I have something worth living for.