This school year has been a strange one, to say the least. Unbelievably challenging, daunting, relieving, and fascinating all at once. There are a multitude of things realized, things discovered, and most clearly, things lost. Time has seemed both weightless and valuable at the same time. In being an adolescent, I’ve come to understand that that strange feeling of transient value is exactly what will make up the remainder of my high school years. It is a confusing feeling, of course, but also, undoubtedly, one that I will never feel again after my youth. You grow up and time escapes you. Now, of course, we feel invincible, as if time does not exist, as if this fleeting youth is infinite, when of course, it is not. This year, I’ve come to accept the briefness of this time, but also the value in it. We make what we want of it. We have a choice to grow up as we want, we do not have to follow the fixed motions which many of my peers believe defines adolescence. There is no one way to grow up. It is not a one size fits all. We all grow up by becoming our truest selves, whoever it is that may be, even if our truest self does not fit perfectly in with our friends. I think, if anything, I’ve learned that authenticity is perhaps the rarest and most impressive quality one can have.
The bravery it takes to be-wholly, unapologetically, truthfully– yourself, especially as an adolescent, when everyone else is trying so desperately not to be? To be blunt, to walk unafraid, to refuse to conform. I find it beautiful. I find it formidable.
And, so, freshman year of high school is (thankfully) over. It is gone, and as much as I would like to comfort myself with the thought of my careless youth, one year has passed, and I have a lot more growing to do. I know that, and however terrifying that may be, however terribly things may go, I think that this fear is exactly what I should be feeling. What we all should be feeling.
It is important to let yourself be terrified, once in a while. It is what makes us human beings, we break ourselves and yet we want to fall again.
So, be afraid, of course, but live anyways, live because of your fear.
Summer is here, and I hope you do this- I hope you do things that scare you, I hope you accomplish because of it. ♦
Oh- I will be leaving for Europe soon, and I will post perhaps every single aspect of my trip!
sofsea 