If You Leave

03

Nineteen

WE DON'T ALWAYS MAKE IT.

WE'RE late to a lot, to everything. We're late to realizations and deadlines and interviews and your boyfriend's mom's birthday. We see the things in front of us and don't take a look in any other directions because we put ourselves, life and other people on the back burner and try to focus on whatever pressing issue society has faced us with in that moment.

When I say society I don't mean all the problems and the issues and the movements we should acknowledge because we should. I mean the orders and the rituals and the "norms" that society has pushed onto us. Passing standardized tests, going to college but also living the high school experience, having tons of friends and no mental illnesses. Being perfect.

And none of us ever make it there. You'd think that by now we'd realize we don't always have to cross the finish line, we don't have to do what this person wants or what the other expects but a lot of us never do. We're always stressing over the test the next day for the class we shouldn't have even taken because we don't need it but everyone around you is getting more credits than necessary.

What I'm saying is, we all struggle balancing it all. I've struggled between being what society wants, doing what society says I'm supposed to do and doing what I want. Doing what I know is right and what I know I should do for myself.

And I mess up a lot. I turn in my work late and I procrastinate and I nearly fail my senior year because I was doing what everyone else told me I was supposed to do. I got too caught up in everyone else and I stopped hearing myself.

I'm nineteen years old today and I feel like I'm twelve and I was dropped into a city I've never been in with no iPhone or any guardian to guide me. And that's the best fucking feeling I've ever felt in my life.

My whole future is in my hands and if I do anything right I hope it's that I listen to my gut reaction, my first instinct, my amazing intuition that we were all gifted with but somewhere along the way we end up suffocating until we can't hear that voice in the back of our head anymore.

All we can do is try to do what's right for ourselves and avoid hurting anyone in the process. Sometimes we won't do either.

But regardless of what you believe everything falls into place. You can put your faith into any god or belief you choose but if you don't put your faith in yourself and your luck against the world you'll never hear yourself, only everyone else.