(18) One of these mornings, won't be very long. You will look for me and I'll be gone.

I'm finishing my first semester of college today and I'm going to dare to say that I've realized something. 

My whole life I've just been waiting for the next "milestone" to prove to myself that I've aged. When you're young, you prove to the world that you're a little bit older every time you complete some task reserved for that age group: middle school, high school, etc. Now I'm in college realizing "this is the thing I was waiting for all this time". College is the big final challenge before you're released into the world completely on your own. 

What if you don't care about college? I keep finding myself looking ahead toward the next "thing" and realizing that there isn't one. I've gone through my life thinking "if I can survive this, I'll make it to that" and now that safety net is gone. I'm not depressed or anxious about it, but I am noticing how "same-y" everything is. 

I'm 18 and finally noticing how stupid the idea of being an adult really is. Nobody knows what they're doing; age doesn't magically wisen you. The only age-based changes we witness in others are on the exterior: beards and crows feet and grey hairs and sun spots. Inside, we're all the same. 

Now I know that last phrase is very One Love and Kumbaya of me but it's true. Our eyes looking out hold the same general principles from the moment we are born. They evolve over time, but our personalities are generally set from birth and we move through the world within them. 

Don't any of you get that question each birthday: do you feel older? I don't think they're expecting you to say yes, I think they're hoping you will so they might see that, yes, age isn't just a number. Because if we're all the same on the inside, what's the point of age? It doesn't really mean anything if you never change. Some people experience evolutions quicker than others: I've got friends who became "cool" in 5th grade. I got "cool" in 11th. Some people stay 12 years old forever. We only change on the outside, we just experience some interior conflicts once in awhile that lead to a change of mind. 

Nobody knows what they're doing, no adult is any less a child, so why do we keep feigning generational superiority? 

Nothing changes inside, only the life you live changes and you evolve to meet it. But always with the same eyes looking out, regardless of the digits to your name. 

If we stop obsessing about the future and live in the present, we'll get over the "if only"s and "what if"s and start just doing. Sometimes compromises have to be made in order to do things you wanna do: if you want to be a professional dancer, you're going to have to start by falling all over your room. If you want to play basketball, you might have to dribble in trainers with a tennis ball before you get the real deals. 

What I'm trying to say is that the myth of "getting older" distracts us from actully living a lot of the time. If you only focus on how much time you have left until you're dead, or how many years until you graduate, you miss on the things you could do to live now. Then it doesn't matter how old you are. Nothing magical comes with age, you don't learn anything new on your birthday. It's down to you to figure shit out regardless your year. 

I saw this video and it was a guy asking an old man what it was like to grow old. The man said "I'm the same man as I've ever been looking out, but people look at me differently."