the day you turn 18 is nothing special. you cut a cake, they sing happy birthday and maybe you get a tattoo or two. who cares? 18 isn't any better than 17 and 17 isn't any better than 16. you still feel like you're 16 anyway. you remember high school being the shittiest experience of your life and you will never forget the day your math teacher yelled at you in class in 7th grade. the memory's still fresh, and the middle school scars retain. you never forget, do you? how can one have the worst memory of all time but somehow manage to recall all their misery? so aggravating and so, so unfair.
but 7 months after you turn 18 and you realize the clock doesn't stop ticking. you're 19 soon and it doesn't stop there. 20, 21, 22. aging doesn't scare you in the way it scares a lot of people: knee pain, wrinkles, an undoing of your youthful years. no, it scares you because seeing beloved ones age along with you leaves a crater deeper than you've ever known. it never goes away -- this looming pressure over your shoulder. to catch up with people you don't even know, to build and earn enough to take care of your parents, to do something, anything to leave a mark behind on this world. because in about 60 more years, you and your cherished ones will be dust and that, is maybe the worst feeling in the world.
do you ever wonder why the years seem to zoom by once you turn 18? remember when you were 11, and 12 seemed so far away? you couldn't wait to grow older and be an adult. look at you now -- scared to grow up. scared to take on responsibilities because the teenager you wanted to be and the adolescence you wanted to live never worked out. 12 seemed really far away, but 19 is just around the corner and the world still seems so far away. i guess i just wish i could stop time sometimes, maybe then i'd know what it's like to take life one step at a time. i suppose i'm too busy learning how to fly.
