15 Years And Counting

E D I T

I wrote this post on 22-04-13. It is today 06-01-14. I intended to post this nearly two years ago and then my blog grinded to a halt. As I approach my 18th birthday, only 6 months of childhood left(!), I can understand now my main reasons for posting this. I was in a sad place, friendship wise, and I was watching a lot of 'satirical' and quite frankly, depressing videos on Youtube commenting on life's little misfortunes. 

While I still feel like this sometimes, these occasions are fewer and farther between which fully allows me to enjoy life and most o the days for even as small a thing as my cat's purr. It is interesting to see how my writing has developed from my 15 year old and sarcastic-as-hell self to my *more mature* 17 going on 18 year old self. I hope that my posts this year will become more positive to truly reflect my personality now, even if I do have to admit things that I'm scared of every now and again. 

15 Kids and Counting sounds like the bad name of a family where the parents seriously need to invest in contraception. But what about 15 Years and Counting. 'You should never ask a woman her age' is one of those common tales that a man is typically told in his younger years. Confession time; I'm 15. I don't necessarily agree with the declaration above, but I do find my birthday a bit of a downer. Cake and presents are nice, but you will only be getting older.

Many people measure milestones in their life. This could be through celebratory meals, or just endless photos on an embarrassing Facebook photo album that you are trying to hide. The most common milestone celebration, in my opinion, is birthdays. MTV seem to have captured the epitome of birthdays with the likes of Sweet Sixteen clearly showing all teenagers that you need to have a lavish party and get a car that you can't even legally drive in order to be cool(ahem...no.)

Sixteen is that limbo age. You are old enough to have sex (haha- that won't be happening for a while), smoke (that either), get a student card, and pilot a glider plane (?!). However, you are too old to buy a child ticket at the train station, for it to be socially acceptable to go trick-or-treating at Halloween, and to have no worries.  Sixteen is an age that often gets overshadowed by the likes of 18th and 21st birthdays, but it marks one of the most prominent occasions in a teen's life- the first time that they will get drunk at a party. LOL, joke. Sixteen is the year of GCSE's, the year of first boyfriends (at an all girl's school? Yeah right), and the year of decisions.

I don't want to be a total downer, but we are all going to die, aren't we? We only have one life to live, and every minute of the day we will not get back, once it's passed. I realised this almost a year ago, and it made my birthday last year really miserable. My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I don't know whether to be excited or nervous. I think that it is because I have built up so much fear in my mind about what comes past aged 15 and that once I turn sixteen, I will not know how to deal with the pressure of exams, and life in general. But is the anticipation of fear worse than the actual outcome? Yes. We are not supposed to think of any danger before it actually comes. I mean, we should not anticipate negative things in advance before they have happened. It is a way of pessimism, but we are all guilty of it.

To me it seems that on the midnight of my 15-16 birthday, my life will change so dramatically. But it won't.  It's not like I will suddenly grow wrinkles all over my face and become some weirdo hag woman. But it won't. I know that now, after a year of worrying. To me, each day is something which should not be wasted, which makes y birthday all the more painful. However, if I was following my own advice, I would have realised by now that each day that I spend being miserable about my upcoming birthday, is one more day that I have wasted being miserable, and working myself up. And over what? The fact that I have to make choices and pass exams?

People also seem to measure their life by their achievements. Just the other day my sister wrote 'Congratulations, your 80' on a card for my Grandma. I think that we all need to realise just how quickly the time between the years will pass, and live each day sans worrying about problems that may never happen.

Cake and presents are nice, but you will only be getting older; you will have so many more opportunities to come, so enjoy them when they come, and celebrate the amazing year you've had rather than the fact that you are getting old.