A Constant Qualm

 I am currently 16. In 12th grade, I'll be going to college soon.

Growing up is something that I hadn't really thought about until it actually started massively affecting me. 

I have to make what feels like the biggest decision of my life which would probably affect where I go from here and how I end up living and perceiving life itself. 

Just the idea of moving out of my parents’ house- not having everything handed to me and having to become an actual independent adult is scary enough for me to feel frozen and absolutely helpless.

I have spent the majority of my high school life in my bedroom and making this big of a change right after the highest form of stagnation I have experienced until now is making the questions in my head multiply with the same speed as the cells in my body.

What if I don't choose the right subjects? What if I don't get into my dream college? What if I am extremely unhappy when I'm older? It feels Like I am being blindfoldedly asked to jump on either one side of the road - not knowing which side has the fastest cars that will coerce me within itself- speeding with such flash through life that I don't even realize what path I am on, at least not before the journey has come to its end anyway.

Is this it? It can't be. I don't know whether these questions emerge out of the distress of experiencing so little when you’re told that these are supposed to be the best days of your life or whether it is a mere dissatisfaction as a basic human trait- or both.

This can't be it because where was the fun? Where did it all go- the fun I was supposed to have as a teenager, the most crucial thing that every other adult glorifies about being of this age. Where did all that go? Was I too busy studying? Because my academic results would prove otherwise.

I feel like a 3-year-old kid who was asked to take as much candy in their miniature hands as they can in a few seconds so they tried taking all of it but because of the panic and the rush ended up with nothing but two hands filled with 4 candies and a whole lot of disappointment. But maybe that's it- the answer to all the questions about my past and my present- maybe I expected too much. 

But maybe I didn't. Maybe this is just the pressure and distress talking. Maybe this is what has made me feel so stale. 

Maybe this is why I'm experiencing constant mood swings that make me self-sabotage and self-destruct every good thought in my mind, just for the same to build back up again and continue the cycle.

Although, through this rollercoaster of a journey I have realized 2 things-

The first being that I'm thinking too much. Staying motionless in our houses has really expanded our thinking capacity because that is sort of all that we have been able to do for the past (almost) two years. So maybe it's time to take a break. The next  realization will answer the elephant in the room- “how?”

My second and final realization is based on the same thing which scares me the most-

“Growth”.

Just as growth is making me so anxious- growth will be the one to take the same away. 

Growth works parallel with time so it will not stop- for the better or the worst (hopefully for the better).

Every uncertainty in my mind will leave with growth and time. A year from now things will be completely different- all with the hope of being for the better.

Being so immersed in the chaos and dismay of spending the last two years of my school life closed up between the four walls of my bedroom, I have forgotten how there's so much more to life than school. School is merely the stepping stone. There can be so much more to life outside of it. Being robbed of our high school experience because of the pandemic shouldn’t be the further criminal to rob us of the joy in our present life.