becoming an adult, my personal experience so far

TRIGGER WARNING: This is very personal, I swear a lot and talk about my struggles with severe depression, self-deprecation and anxiety at a young age, discretion is advised.

It's so crazy to think i'm about to be an adult legally since i've been pretending to be one for the longest time

My life as a child made me tough on the outside and squishy on the inside like a kojak candy. I was so used to people chewing me up and spitting me out like bubblegum, and when they stopped (because I made them stop, I wish it had been their own volition, but beggars can't be choosers) I didn't know what to do with my self. That was scary and made me realize I didn't know me at all, that was the first time I felt I was close to grasping what becoming an adult meant.

Years go by and now I'm sitting here, on my laptop, thinking about starting uni, moving to the big city with annoying people and annoying cars making annoying noises at hours I'm pretty sure are illegal according to my contract and the city's laws. But I already knew, and I've known for the longest time that this would be the way I would become someone, I can endure it and I'm sure preparing to become someone, already makes the general shape of who I become.

If there's something you need to know about me, it's that I've been a planner most of my life, sometimes I don't even follow the plan but knowing I can stick to it when things go wrong makes me feel safe. Another thing about me is, no one really knows my plans, sometimes, not even myself, since I change them according to how stuff evolves, I'm versatile like that but don't be mistaken to think I'm spontaneous, I've thought about every outcome before. It's in a file in a folder under lock in the back of my head and I only access it in the early mornings when the lack of sleep makes my restraints fall off.

It wasn't always this way though, it's weird to think that as a child I thought I wouldn't see the day I would end my secundary education, that I would live forever with my name set in stone and my bones under dirt before that would happen. But then, life its about changes, and shit, did it change.

I have friends, actual friends now and they care if I cut my line off. I'm ashamed to admit that old people are actually onto something when they say you are your surroundings, and if the only thing you see is your messy ass room and people as bad or worse than you- welp, you know how you'll end up already.

They're also onto something when they say nature helps, I was one of those emo kids that would say life is not worth it and throw in a "it's me being factual not depresive" but guess what? Saying that while having depression might aswell cancel out the statement. Going back to nature, I thought it was some hippie shit and that pachamama was great but only a miracle could actually save me. I had been alone and sad so long that the mere idea of it changing felt impossible, to the point where I self-sabotaged to stay that way. It's sad but it's familiar and it's comfortable, and it's gonna ruin your life if you don't stop.

The only miracle is a change of mind, you are your own miracle, no one will save you if you cant seem to fathom the idea of being saved, it's something you hear a lot while depressed but like most stuff, you ignore it thinking (or trying to convince yourself) it's bullshit.

I remember the day I changed my mind.

It was pandemic, around 2021, in a little cottage in the middle of a small town in Patagonia. 

My family knows the owners of the place, we used to vacation there every summer and winter when we were still picture perfect, before our sweet white picket fence dream became sour.

The owners weren't renting but my dad and I thought a change of pace was what we needed and dammit, freud was right saying that to fix your life you gotta go back to your childhood. It was so important for me to be back there, and in that summer afternoon, drinking milk tea at the handmade wooden table, I opened up.

I cried about what i did, what I didn't do, what happened, and my responses to those situations.
My childish soul felt 7 years old again but with the weight of a teenager who's seen too much and been through enough. My mom wasn't there but we talked so much about her she might as well have been there, leaving her red lipstick prints on the mugs and laughing with her suave voice about our dispairs that now seem so small, like the baby teros walking outside or the lady bugs that rested on my hands. 

It was the first time i gave everything away, no more keeping my dreads a secret and when i heard a voice answer that wasn't mine, the response was "you gotta keep living". And isn't it so beautiful? How after years of me daydreaming I could tell someone how I feel and what I'm going through, after countless fake therapy seasions where I was the patient and the therapist, and the perpetrator and the victim, finally someone outside the cycle broke it, but they did because I let them in.

That's my ennies lobby.

Sorry, I'm an otaku at heart and love being dramatic, almost as much as i love being alive now.