I do(n't) want to grow up

letter 8: I took a look at my journal

something I found on my old journal

the last four months were life-changing for me. I took a university entrance exam, panicked about my score, made my uni choices, moved to a new city to study a language I know nothing about except saying hello, started living with a stranger, made new friends and so on. and while all of these happened I wrote on my journal pretty consistently. my goals, deepest thoughts, feelings I would never even tell my therapist about are on this notebook.

as I am sitting in a cafe near my dorm reading the first few pages I realize how afraid and excited I was to grow up, to change. I was shivering with anxiety thinking about leaving home while flying to the roof with the freedom that’ll come with it.

it is a bitter-sweet thing, growing up I mean. you know that every single thing will never ever be the same yet you are filled with a tingly feeling. you make to-do lists, research the cafes you want to visit, download apps telling you what roots to take to go to certain places, make playlists despite that little feeling of fear. am I capable of these big changes, am I going to be okay?

I really don’t know what i’m doing. is being alone makes me feel this miserable or is it something else? I can’t stand being in the room and not having a space of my own to relax. this makes everything harder. I am not comfortable.

this is normal. I know this. everyone said that the first weeks will be hard, I just didn’t think it would be this hard. I constantly repress my feelings and I write right now because of this.

my routine is completely messed up. I nearly cry with a familiar person’s voice. everyone is a stranger.

am i capable of this? am I going to be okay?

nine days after moving I wrote this in my journal. I look at it and smile now but I still remember the feelings I had while writing. I felt like I was in the deepest end of tartarus and there were no way out. of course after two weeks or so I adjusted better. I started making friends with the start of classes. and I think one of the major things that made me feel like this was the absence of some schedule. I had nothing going on with my day and was completely alone with my thoughts. because I didn’t have any classes, not being able to create a routine was brutal too. (I am someone who is deeply dependent on her routines and this was harder on me than most people, I guess.)

as time passed I started thinking about the people I don’t talk to yet miss. because that’s what happens when you face changes. you think about the past. I thought about what would my life be if I talked to them right now, how would they affect this journey.

it’s been a few seconds til’ I exhaled my last breath

they’re already here

asking me about you

about all the things we have done

from our tied hands to the rope in your hair

that they used for my corpse

every now and then I think about those people. I miss them even though they were harmful to me. I think about our joyful moments. how they laughed, the jokes they made. I am tied to this past with a fine string and sometimes I can feel the pressure it makes on my wrists. this comes with growing up. every new experience reminds me of these people. being tied to your past. I can’t cut that string whatever I do. it is a part of me, I can’t make it disappear. I don’t want it to disappear either. the mistakes I made with them is a big part of my accomplishments now. I carry them within me. there were some people that hurt me but it stopped hurting after some time leaving me with some kind of wisdom in front of the world lying above me. I learned more about myself from all the time I spent with them. it made me grow a little more.

and as I am continuing my life, I’m meeting more people that someday will become my past. I know that not everyone is going to stick but the things I learnt with them will.

this was one of the things I got scared of while everything changed as well. new people meant new problems and experiences. I didn’t think that I was strong enough to build connections and continue them consistently. I thought that I would cut all of them again like I did in high school. I was ,again, tied to my past. however I dived right into it. I introduced myself to new people and listened to their stories while telling mine.

i am doing good about this right now. I am building stronger relationships with every passing day without trying to guess if they will stick or not. I am simply enjoying my time without estimating future. because I know that no matter what I do everything will fall into its place. this was what happened with my adjustment to a new city, school. I had hard times but everything eventually fell into its place.

i am still afraid of some things and I will be for the rest of my life. but at least I know how to react towards them.

---

thank you for reading this personal essay. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ve been thinking about writing this for some time now and made a playlist ages ago so if you want to listen to it please feel free to do so.

Love,

Mel