an internal monologue

i still remember one distinct afternoon in freshman year, coming home from school after being dropped off my neighbor who happened to routinely chauffer me to and from school on days when my parents jobs stretched across the majority of the hours in the day, and sending myself into a sort of panic as i punched in the code to the garage door.

as an adult reading this, it may be funny to think about how high schoolers tend to perceive levels of seniority as more mature or deserving of respect (or fear). i get that all four years are still babies on the grand scale, but i do believe that there is a large difference between a younger teenager who is closer to 10 and an older one who is closer to 20. personally, i spent my "closer to ten" years being told that i was very mature for my age in comparison to my peers. of course, i did not understand until later that this was not because of some grand disposition that i had been born with or admirably raised to be, but from traumatic experiences in my younger childhood that forced me to grow up faster than my friends, or at least made me think that i had to. because of this, in 9th and 10th grade i considered myself to be vastly intellectually superior to my classmates who were still acting like foolish middle schoolers and not fun, rebellious, or studious high schoolers. being exposed to older teenagers with only preconceived notions of what they were like caused me to form a lot of new understandings of how communities functioned-- ninth grade was definitely my "year of realizing stuff", to quote kylie jenner.

now, before i let myself get too off track, back to the hook. car rides home, though a very short distance from school, served as a time to unwind and let my thoughts wander after a long day of escaping the dress code, trying to convince my friends to avoid stupid decisions, and general stressors that come from the simple life of "rinse and repeat" school routines. this particular day, i was set off on a mental spiral after hearing my peers discuss all day about what classes they would be signing up for next year, and how important they would serve to their acceptance in three years time at any university, michigan or higher, of course. being a student of our community, my academic future had been a burden on my shoulders for (retrospectively) no absolute reason since the beginning of our secondary education. the prospect of college really scared me at fourteen, because i didn't know how to exist on my own. there was virtually no way for me to imagine myself detached from my comfortable space-- my parents who i saw every day and relied on more than i had pride to admit, my classmates whom i had grown up with, teachers that i formed personal connections with and relied on for emotional validation on occasion. despite being told forever about how mature and intellectual i was, i didn't feel like any of it. if i was so smart, why did growing up scare me? why did i feel so much anxiety when i thought about making my own choices, figuring out what i was going to do with my life? i realized then at the garage door that i wasn't prepared to face the world without my support system.

this is where the contrast between being a younger and older teenager comes in. i have learned that with every year i sprouted further from childhood, i understood more how to be my own person. though the details of this concept are still vague, i feel more prepared at 17 to separate myself from what i know as the "commercial" luna and diverge onto a path of growing into the "genuine" and well-composed luna. not to say that i am no longer afraid of growing up, because i definitely have no idea how to navigate that, but i feel now that i am better equipped after a couple more years of experience to make the right choices for myself. this is what i learned; that being unsure is perfectly normal, because everyone else is equally as unsure as you are, and we are all just playing one good game of Hiding It. now at the time where i have to jump, whether i want to or not, i think that hiding it has taught me how to fall on my own.