18 years

6,570 days

157,680 hours

9,460,800 minutes

567,648,000 seconds.

18 years.

In case you can't tell, I turned 18.  Yesterday was my birthday, I'm 18 now. I have said that so many times now.  But I am really just saying that because maybe the more I say it the more I will get used to it.  

Yesterday I didn't feel any different.  I looked the same, thought the same, and dressed the same.  But today I feel different.  I don't look the same, I don't think the same and I don't dress the same.  I feel different, probably because I am different, relative to a year, three years, 18 years ago.  These 18 years have changed me, molded me into who I am right now.  Every experience I have been through has been preparing me for now, for tomorrow, for the future.  Perhaps that is why I feel different.  Not because of the age, but because life is at my doorstep now.  I am legally an adult, of course to my parents they still view me as a kid (because compared to them I am), but legally and by societal standards I am an adult.  Im ready, but I'm not.

I'm not ready for finances, moving, insurance, and all those other adult things.  But I am ready for; freedom, experiences, and college.  

Even though society now expects me to all of a sudden understand everything, understand purpose, understand the world, I don't.  I still run to my parents room (SOMETIMES) after watching a scary movie.

For the past 18 years I feel as if I have been rushing, rushing to this moment, to this age...but now, now I feel like I need to take it slow.  Take it slow because I know that I don't know everything.  But its really okay.  I don't have to know everything, nothing has to make sense right now, but one day it will.  One day everything that is happening in this moment, every failure, every success...will make sense.

So for now I will take things slow, no longer be in a constant rush.  For now I will hug my parents a little longer.  For now I will appreciate the friends I have known for years.  For now I will live for right now and not the future.  For now I will be a girl that is about to walk into the uncharted territory of college.

So for anyone who is younger than 18, take it easy.