No one tells you about teenage-hood. No one prepares you for the heartache, the pain, the ups and downs, the hurdles, the thunder, or the rainy days. It’s not easy. It’s crazy how much changes once you become an adult. The number of different ongoing issues. All the thoughts wrapped around the brain. All the misspoken words. The silence.
No one prepares you for any of it.
When you become an adult, after high school, everything starts to change. University is like a new world of its own that takes getting used to, and most importantly, it is not for everyone. Then there is balancing studies and work because you have to be responsible for your own expenses now. Then there is balancing work, uni, and your social life. But graduating high school comes with a lot of lost friendships that again, no one prepares you for. Then you have to make friends at uni. But it’s so much harder than I can explain. It almost makes you miss being in high school. You start to feel lonely, there is pain and heartache. Nights filled with sad tunes and wet pillowcases. Then you feel stressed because adjusting to uni is not simple and work can get too much sometimes and you want more free time to do what makes you happy and spend time with family but you almost don’t have enough hours in a day to make time for everything. Then you become tired because you spend your nights resting and your mornings studying. Then there is relationships. Somehow, amongst everything else that is going on, you have to make time for the one you love, because you miss them too much and they make you happy. But that’s not always the case. And when they fail to make you happy, it all just gets a bit too much. Then everything starts to hit you at once. And you just can’t do it anymore. You feel like you’re suffocating. There is expectations from you, your parents want you to do the best that you can and one way or another, they will always have an opinion. One day they will be proud and the next they might be disappointed.
Whenever you speak to a family member, they will without a doubt question you about your education. And it will often start by what do you want to become or what is your plan for the future and most of us won’t have the answer to that question because we’re not quite sure what it is that we want to do yet. And it’s not easy to figure it out because there is so many options and everyone has their opinion on what they see you as and you’re not even sure if you’re enjoying what you’re studying and all of a sudden, you feel like your life is a mess without any purpose.
When you’re not at work or at uni, there is plenty of other stuff to take care of. Like laundry, taking your car to a service, shopping, cooking, cleaning and all the other normal day activities.
Every single day you have to wake up and be strong. You have to go to uni and meet new people and work in groups and do assignments you’re not really sure how to do and spend hours with people you may not even know, or like, and your friends will probably be busy so you’ll most likely end up eating lunch alone, quickly, in a corner just so you can get back to studying.
It’s not easy being a teenager or a young adult. Over one night you go from being in high school and completely dependent on your parents to having to pay taxes and submitting your own assignments because no one chases after you anymore. So many days I wake up and it just feels like it’s too much. I feel lonely and alone. I feel exhausted. I feel lost. I feel stupid. I feel out of place. I feel unloved. I feel like there is no way my shoulders can carry the weight of all this pressure and stress and expectations. But there is nothing I can do except keep working hard and believe that it’ll all be okay in the end.
