Adulthood.

It’s the 12^th today, and it’s only a few steady days until my birthday.

I have heard many things from different people. My parents already expect me to be an adult, but it seems at home because my home is where I act most childlike. Obi says turning 18 is a momentous moment, where everything you think is real changes, one of the biggest changes being that ‘you don’t give a shit, and you won’t take shit from anyone’ and that ‘you won’t waste time’. Enoque tells me it’s like any other birthday, and I shouldn’t be yearning for an age that presumes my maturity and I should just ultimately ‘be’ rather than ‘expect to be’.

Whether expectations are interpreted as naiive or hopeful, adulthood has been something that I have been waiting for a long while. The places where I experienced glimpse of adulthood were also areas of my life that restricted or kept me from truly achieving it, such as school, family, friends, my talents and interests. 

However, these people and activities will still be a huge part of my identity, but it is the drastic circumstances in which the change would ensue. My family will expect different things from me, the majority of my friends will leave to university, and will subsequently make other friends at their new ‘homes’ (I will do the same in art school), my relationships with people will have more depth, and my interests will mature and develop.

It seems that my change in identity is just around the corner, and although undoubtedly excited, I feel afraid. In many ways I am comfortable in my nearly-grown-up-but-not-quite lifestyle. I live at home and have little responsibility for myself. I am financially adept, and I don’t have to take many risks.

I forget that I have undergone many risky things in my life, but there is that next step I need to take. Yesterday night I was sat with my friend Phillipe, both of us stinking of cider and cigarettes in the backmy parents’ car, where he shared a valuable lesson with me that he learnt when working at his new job. He told me that the key to success was ‘going the extra mile’. He told me that small things that he has done for the company, working extra hours, talking to his co-workers, have now made him invaluable in his workplace, which is really special for someone that is only 18, and didn’t finish school. I think this thesis applies to growing up too. For example, I can easily rely on my parents and friends to get me jobs, or even rely on teachers to push me through school; or I can choose to have a better awareness of who I am and what I want, and grasp every opportunity to grow with both hands.

I think this change is inevitable, but time will only tell how soon. More than anything in my life, I have wanted to embody a woman who knows and gets what she wants. I want to take the positive advice I’m given and become someone. Aspiration and courage will get me where I want to be. It’s that first step to adulthood I need right now to do that, and I can’t wait to see what there is waiting for me on the other side.