So it's 2011 now.
It's one of those target years that has always loomed large in the distance for me, ever since I walked into the middle school as a tiny naive twelve-year-old and saw WELCOME CLASS OF 2011 written in chalk on the sidewalk.
(The last big year I had was 2008, because when I was ten years old I figured out that I would turn sixteen in 2008, and at the time I was obsessed with the romantic idea of a sweet sixteen - back then, I thought that if I could just get to 2008, I would finally stop feeling like a little kid. That...didn't actually happen.)
But this is 2011. I am eighteen years old, and it is simultaneously a huge deal and absolutely nothing at all. Because I know now that one day passed on its own cannot magically change a person, and I know that eighteen is just an arbitrary line drawn by the government that has no real significance since most people these days don't mature until their thirties. A week ago, I was seventeen, and I was exactly the same as I am now. Still...I mean, all this logic can't erase the years and years of cultural conditioning that has made eighteen sound like A Really Big Deal.
I can do more now. I can vote, if I ever get off my ass and register. If I wasn't terrified of smoking, I could theoretically do that. I can read smutty fic without lying to LJ about my age. I can buy scratch tickets. I can sign my own permission slips for school - and holy crap, I just realized that if I had a good enough reason I could sign myself out of school. I can, I don't know, order crap I don't need from 800 numbers on infomercials. The possibilities are endless. So all of that feels kind of big, since I'm so used to waving things like that off as Stuff I Can't Do.
I don't really know where I'm going with all of this. But. I'm eighteen.
I guess all of this semi-perceived maturity is negated by the fact that I literally cannot stop thinking about and staring at and over-analyzing the boys of Big Time Rush. Really, self? I've regressed back to Nickelodeon teen sitcoms? Really?
Yeah. Really. Because they are ridiculously shiny and wonderful and they help me not think about school and college applications.
I mean look at them.
Pictured above: Classic Boyfriend Formation. You see? They are boyfriends. It is painfully obvious and adorable.
Anyways. Happy New Year, everybody!
(The last big year I had was 2008, because when I was ten years old I figured out that I would turn sixteen in 2008, and at the time I was obsessed with the romantic idea of a sweet sixteen - back then, I thought that if I could just get to 2008, I would finally stop feeling like a little kid. That...didn't actually happen.)
But this is 2011. I am eighteen years old, and it is simultaneously a huge deal and absolutely nothing at all. Because I know now that one day passed on its own cannot magically change a person, and I know that eighteen is just an arbitrary line drawn by the government that has no real significance since most people these days don't mature until their thirties. A week ago, I was seventeen, and I was exactly the same as I am now. Still...I mean, all this logic can't erase the years and years of cultural conditioning that has made eighteen sound like A Really Big Deal.
I can do more now. I can vote, if I ever get off my ass and register. If I wasn't terrified of smoking, I could theoretically do that. I can read smutty fic without lying to LJ about my age. I can buy scratch tickets. I can sign my own permission slips for school - and holy crap, I just realized that if I had a good enough reason I could sign myself out of school. I can, I don't know, order crap I don't need from 800 numbers on infomercials. The possibilities are endless. So all of that feels kind of big, since I'm so used to waving things like that off as Stuff I Can't Do.
I don't really know where I'm going with all of this. But. I'm eighteen.
I guess all of this semi-perceived maturity is negated by the fact that I literally cannot stop thinking about and staring at and over-analyzing the boys of Big Time Rush. Really, self? I've regressed back to Nickelodeon teen sitcoms? Really?
Yeah. Really. Because they are ridiculously shiny and wonderful and they help me not think about school and college applications.
I mean look at them.
Pictured above: Classic Boyfriend Formation. You see? They are boyfriends. It is painfully obvious and adorable.
Anyways. Happy New Year, everybody!