On the art of figuring stuff out

When you’re little, you hear people telling you that you’re going to, at one point in your life, try to figure out what life is. Not only that but more importantly; why it is. This chain of thoughts supposedly comes along with puberty. You are, according to biology, going to be trying to figure out who you are, and along with that, the inevitable question; why you are.

When I was 14, I had heard all of this a million times, and I was waiting for the teenage depression to kick in. I suppose I did dwell a little bit over who I was, mostly related to what clothing style was the right one for that month, or whether Leonardo Di Caprio was more handsome than Josh Hartnett or vice versa. And when I so turned 19, had gone through all of the adolescent musts and become a well-equipped woman, I thought I was done. I patted my own back, shook hands with myself and said “Good Game”. Just some light eating disorder and a couple of stress related allergy shocks, and that was it. I’d gone through it all without any major damage on neither my parents nor myself.

But so came the months after high school graduation including the anniversary of my class mate’s death and the time to decide what to make of the life I was leading. And BAM, enter dwelling. No, I did not embark on the teenage depression when I was supposed to, and maybe that’s why these questions come back to haunt me now. Too late in life, when I’m supposed to be through with all this, and nobody will understand me. Who am I and why the heck am I here?

I’ve also always been told that the years of high school are the best in one’s life. No real responsibilities, just study and play. Well, I didn’t believe people who said that. Because, honestly, I didn’t think it was all that fun. I was just stressing out about not learning all the stuff that I really could be learning had we used a different book or had another teacher. Thinking that I probably wasn’t that smart, since we would always get an easier test than N3b, and I would surely enough not be a straight A student had I ended up somewhere else. It’s not until now that I get it. And now it’s too late to enjoy what I once had.

So what if the rest of my life will only be about this. About stressing out about wondering why I am? What if I’ll always just long for the next thing to start, never be happy in the moment? I’m scared out of my wits of this. And it’s not OK.