Now I Know Why I Started This Blog

    I am almost 18. I don't have my drivers license. I haven't taken my ACT. I haven't applied for any colleges. I don't have a job. Prom is in a few weeks, and I don't have my tux. Nothing in my life is sorted.

    And that's all my fault. I get that. I didn't start growing up fast enough, and now it's catching up with me.

    I could have had my license if I'd have just practiced a bit more, but I've taken the test multiple times, and I was unprepared each time. Except the fourth time. I was ready. I got out of school early, did some practice driving, took the better car (instead of my dads junk heap), and psyched myself up. Except I didn't account for dumb luck. Some guy ignored my right-of-way at an uncontrolled intersection, and my instructor yelled "STOP!", even as I was in the process of stopping. Apparently, that's a fail. Now I have to arrange 6 hours of behind the wheel before I take the test again.

    I take the ACT next week. I should have last year, with the rest of my class, but my laziness got in the way. I never signed up for any prep classes. I never signed up for the real thing. Now, it's literally my last chance before college, and I'm not prepared, because again, I was lazy.

    The main reason I haven't applied for college is because I have yet to take my ACT. As soon as I've done that, I intend to apply at a community college near my house. I have my college plan all set up, I just have to be able to start it.

    I don't have a job because I'm a lazy, useless turd who can't imagine himself being constrained to a life of labor. Honestly. I wish I had a job. I wish I had money, and a way to spend my time doing something worthwhile. But the process of getting one...getting a resume, getting references, applying, interviews, handling rejection. The concept of all of that is a lot to deal with.

    Here's what pisses me off. In other cultures, you are an adult when you kill your first lion. Or when you get married, usually at a young age. Or maybe as soon as you can work, you do what your father or mother does, and then you're an adult. In America? Nobody has a clue when childhood ends and adulthood begins.

    Legally, at 18, you're an adult. You can vote. You can be tried in court as an adult. Other than that? If they want, your parents can still house you. You can still be under their insurance. They can kick you out, but they don't have to.

    Most people stay with their parents for another year or two, working or going to college or both. They eat their food, sometimes use their cars, use their medical plan. But before all this there are the teenage years. Those are the most confusing.

    Until the 50's, there was no such thing as a teenager. It really is the worst of all American inventions, next to the Sham-WOW! and asbestos. It creates this period of time where people who are physically able to be adults, but not quite emotionally able to, are expected to be...nothing. Everyone has different expectations from them.

    Biologically, you are a young adult from puberty till around the age of 25. That's when you are fully developed mentally, and for the most part, physically. But socially, our standards are FUBAR. People treat teens with so little respect. They see them as rebellious, fickle, over-emotional, naive, unreliable, and the list goes on.

    But who can blame us, really? We don't know who we are! Back in the day, you knew who you were from the get-go. You were a farmer because that's what your dad was. Maybe once you made some money and could sell the land, you could be something else, but until then, you were gonna grow wheat and you wouldn't complain, because it was honest work.

    Or maybe you were a shoemaker, or a church worker, or a doctor, or whatever. Point is, people didn't have these identity crises. Now there are roughly five years of our lives with varying expectations, and we don't know what to do with them. Some party, some join political movements, some just keep their heads down and trudge through high school.

    I look at some of my friends who got jobs handed to them. They work at their churches because they are involved there in some way, and it all worked out. Or they work for their parents or family friend in some fashion. Either way, they didn't go job searching, they just were given a decent job.

    I have other friends who have jobs, but their cars and phones and college are all paid for, and that won't change for the foreseeable future, so they get to blow their money however they want. They don't even have to work. They only do to fund their teenage escapades, and they seem to enjoy what they do.

    I have other friends who will have to pay for everything, and they work their butts off, naturally. These people usually also work very hard in school, so they generally have a hard time fitting in time for friends in their busy schedule. I see them and think, "I don't want that! If that is what work is like, it's not worth it!"

    Point is, nobody has any correct way to live their teenage life modeled for them by their peers, because everyone has different expectations!

    And it all gets worse once you hit 18. If you're 17 and don't have a job, that's not a huge deal most of the time. Most people have their licenses, but again, if they have friends that can drive them, they don't have to stress it to much. Most have college planned at this point, but some intend to work for a few years before college.

    17 is an awkward transitional phase because right when you hit 18, the pressure is ON. You don't have a job and you're an adult? What a lazy, ungrateful runt you turned out to be. You're using your parents car and your an adult? What, are you going to live in their basement for the rest of your life as well? You don't know where you're going to college and you're an adult? Have fun working at McDonalds forever, you uneducated filth.

    Wait a minute, hold up! It's been a day since I was a child, right? I don't feel like an adult. In fact, I don't feel much different from when I was 16, let alone from a couple days ago! Why are the standards different now?

    The thing is, we know it's coming. I've known this was coming since I was able to grasp how time and aging works. I knew at some point, I wouldn't be a child anymore. That I would have to be responsible. That I wouldn't get a life of leisure.

    There's a problem, though. I messed up. I messed up big, and I don't get to try again. Ideally, there would be a slightly gradual shift from childhood to adulthood. It would maybe start with getting my license. I can drive, yay! I'm independent! Then getting a job. I have money, yay! I'm even more independent! Then doing the ACT, and getting ready for college. Whoa, higher education! I get to choose where to go and what to do with my life, I'm independent!

    That's another thing. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to let teenagers/young adults choose what they want to do for the rest of their life? Again, back in the day, that wasn't really an option. Even those who did go to college usually went to do what their father did, or whatever was profitable.

    Now there are thousands of options, and no matter which one you choose, not only are you guaranteed it will cost you to much to learn, but there is no guarantee it will do you any good. And you are letting people who have not physiologically developed the ability to think ahead and make good decisions base their future financial and emotional well being on...what? Which school has the best party scene but also offers them a liberal arts degree?

NO! THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! THIS SYSTEM MAJORLY SUCKS!

    Anyway, back to how I messed up my whole life. I didn't test the waters. I didn't gradually adjust m psyche to the concept of being independent and self-reliant. My parents tried. I love them so much, because they tried. They sent me to drivers ed fairly early on, but I dragged out my 10 classes over nearly a year. I never studied for the test, and it took me 3 tries to get my permit. Then I dragged out behind the wheel tests for even longer.

    Why? I don't have a freaking clue. I guess lack of forethought and a deeply rooted urge to procrastinate. I don't know where that came from, I really don't. Anyway, the story goes on. I procrastinated on taking my license test, I never practiced driving, and now, here I am, a few weeks from my senior prom and unable to drive my date. It's humiliating, but I have no one to blame but myself. 

    Same goes for my ACT. I had options. I had so many times available. My parents continued pressuring me, and that turned me off from the whole concept.

    You see, I don't respond well to being told to do anything. It's not that I'm a rebel, it's just that I like to do things at my own pace. If I have something that absolutely has to be done, I'll eventually get to it. But tell me, "You have to do this now!" when I clearly don't have to do it now, I put it off, just to show you that you're wrong. I don't have to do it now, silly. Look, I'll do it later, it'll work out.

    Except it won't. Because now, here I am, a month and a half from turning 18, just now having the epiphany that I have completely and totally wasted my life. I never strove to be anything more than a kid, and soon I won't be, and I won't have a single freaking clue how to be anything greater. 

    And don't bother telling me, "It's not so bad. Just do it. You're possibly just a few days away from a job! You just have to crack down, and put your mind to it, and you'll be fine!"

    Technically, yes, that's true. I get that. That's the whole point! I know what I have to do, but I dread it. 

    My mom was just in my room a few hours ago, watching me write a silly blog post about Beauty and the Beast. She sat and nagged me about doing more with my life for about 5 minutes. I curled up into my protective mental shell, only ever responding with non-committal grunts. Eventually, she left, leaving me with the remark, "It's just scary for a mother to see her son being so comfortable."

    I understand that. She wants me to succeed. She'd be happy with me having a one day a week job. She'd be happy with me doing literally anything, as long as I'm applying myself and getting paid for it. That's why she pushes me so very, very often to get off my butt and do something. 

    "Here's what's scarier", I wanted to say. "What's scarier is standing on the beach in the sun, knowing that you can delay diving into the frigid water for a short while longer, but at some point in the near future, you are either going to take the plunge, or be forced in from behind. You haven't taken your swimming lessons. You haven't been exercising. And you certainly haven't been preparing for the cold. But you will have to take the swim, one way or another, and the worst part is, you can't see the other side. All you know is that right now, you are comfortable and happy, but any day now, you will being swimming, and you will be swimming for what seems like forever."

    Of course I didn't say that. That sounds like poetic BS, and I'd want to punch someone in the face if they said that to me. It sounds overly dramatic and silly. Honestly though, it describes how I feel, and how I've felt for a long time. I keep delaying being responsible because I know as soon as I begin, I leave the beach and begin the long journey that is the rest of my life.

    That scares me. A lot.

    The thing is, that was when I realized why I started this blog. It isn't because I have any great aspirations of making money off of it, although someday that could hypothetically happen. It isn't because it's a great medium for me to express myself, although it is that. It's not even because I have people who enjoy reading it, although I do. It's because it helps me escape. While I'm writing here, everything else seems to fade away. It gives me a purposeless purpose, if that makes any sense at all. 

    I understand why teenagers are so depressed all the time. It isn't simply because of our hormones messing with our emotions. It's the stress. The stress of school for some. Also the stress of relationships for many others. For me?  It's the stress of the future. I'm not ignorant. I know what I've done wrong, what I'm doing wrong, and what I can do to change it.

    I've always been afraid of heights. People who enjoy climbing up high are not right in the head as far as I'm concerned. There is nothing happy about knowing there is nothing but a rope or a fence between you and imminent death. So maybe that's part of my problem. I'm standing on the edge, about to dive, but there is always that single step...