Getting Older is Scary, Let's Talk About It

Hello all! This week is a super light week for me which means this week is a blog post week! I’ve come to realize that the old weekly Monday posts schedule that I stuck by is going to have to be put on pause until my schedule becomes lighter. For now, I’m planning on just posting whenever I have a moment for myself to breathe.

Let’s talk birthdays. For as long as I can remember, I have loved my birthday and the days leading up to it. When you’re a kid, birthdays mean growing up and getting older. But once you hit a certain age, you realize that birthdays mean growing up and getting older. One day you’re graduating from middle school and in the next moment, you’re in your senior year of college attempting to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. Responsibility goes from being something you crave as a child to something you wish you could give back to your parents. You go from dreaming about getting your driver’s license and buying your own alcohol to wanting to freeze time and go back to the simpler days where all that mattered was what dress you were going to wear to prom.

I’m turning 21-years-old on April 14th and I’m slowly realizing that I have begun to dread my birthday for that reason. I don’t know why but 21 just seems so old. Much older than any of the other ages I have turned. I can legally drink alcohol, rent a car, book a hotel room anywhere (because some hotels don’t let you book even if you are over the age of 18) and probably more things that I don’t even know about. And while yes, this is all exciting and fun, I can’t help but recognize this looming cloud over my head that the older I get, the more responsibility I will have and the more independent I will become. And while yes, this is something I have always wanted (and still do want), that doesn’t make it less scary.

By no means am I saying this as a way to complain. Each birthday I reach, I am so grateful to have experienced another lap around the sun. And truthfully, I have never had a bad birthday. The worst birthday was probably when I turned 19 during the pandemic but even then, my friends and family found ways to make it special and I had the best day. I am genuinely looking forward to my 21st. But the idea of not being able to rewind time always runs through my head around the month of April. I’m not sure if any of you are into video games but there’s this one game called Life is Strange where the main character has powers and is able to rewind time and make different choices that change the trajectory of the game itself. Now I’m not saying I would use this power to change things, but the option to rewind time and live through old happy memories is something I would take in a heartbeat.

Coming up on the tail end of my junior year of college, I’m realizing how quickly time goes by. I remember moving into my dorm freshman year and meeting all of the people I have grown to call family. Now I have just shy of a year left in my academic career and I’m stuck wondering where the time went. COVID made my college experience go by in a blink of an eye and in a way, I will always be bitter about that. But the good thing is that I am also realizing how much I have to savor the rest of my time in Rhode Island while it lasts. I know I’m never going to get these years back but being aware of that is allowing me to really cherish every moment I have in college and make the best of every day that comes.

I guess, in a way, someone reading this would think that I’m currently having some sort of quarter-life crisis. But in reality, I feel like realizing all of this is a pivotal moment in any person’s life (or at least mine). For a long time, I had a very naive outlook on life. I used to be so optimistic about every single thing that happened in my life and thought that if you had a positive attitude about something, you would get a positive outcome. And while yes. I still think this most of the time, I also recognize that you need to be realistic about things. Sometimes you’re going to have a positive attitude about a situation, but the outcome will be (for lack of a better term) shit. But it’s how you deal with those shitty outcomes that matter. When something bad happens, you have two options. You can either lay down and accept defeat, or stand up and deal with what’s coming and look on the glass half full side of things. And while yes, recognizing that getting older is inevitable absolutely blows, I’m choosing to look on the bright side of the situation. Some people don’t realize this until it’s too late. The fact that I’m aware of this now gives me more time to enjoy these years while they are here and make memories that I know are going to last, with the people I love.

Rereading this post back, I feel like it can be seen in a very pessimistic light which was not my intention with it whatsoever. I love getting my thoughts out on the screen because it allows me to organize them and make more sense of them in my head, which is exactly what this blog post was. I also feel like a lot of people have similar thoughts to mine but are too scared to vocalize them. I’m here to tell you that if you are one of those people, what you are feeling is completely valid and I can assure you that you are not alone in your thoughts. Getting older is scary, but we need to make the most of the time we have in every phase of our lives.

I’m sure this post was very cringy and cheesy but I’m feeling nostalgic and felt that this was only right to share. In other news, it is Aries season aka my time to shine! I’m hoping to make one more birthday blog post within the next week so stay tuned for that when it comes!

I hope you all have a lovely week!

- Meg