The struggle is real.

Exactly seven months and  two days from now, I lose my teenager status and with it – my excuse for all goals unreached to date. What are my plans for the future and handling this terrifying step into adulthood? Well, first and foremost, I plan on learning to go to the bathroom at night without being absolutely petrified by the dark. It sounds like a reasonable place to start… right?

My life is at a crossroads, or – more accurately – a line. A line where behind me lies the carelessness of being young and being alive: Schoolbooks and house parties, shy kisses and awkward hugs, home-cooked meals and ironed laundry. All the comforts of home and the absolute joy of being cared for and nurtured to grow and to learn and to finally prepare you for what lies ahead of this fine and menacing line; Responsibility. Career choices and colleges, study loans and bills. Eating only what you need to survive and drinking enough to make you wish you hadn’t. Friends who betray you and strangers who become the friends that share their food with you (Note: Friends who feed you are friends for life). Figuring out how to budget on no budget and how to make ends meet when the start isn’t even that great.  It’s crazy, it’s unpredictable and it’s terrifying at best. Surely everyone else is just pretending to be adults…

Welcome to the life of an almost-adult. There will be complaining and wine-drinking, failures and lessons, broken hearts and knifes that need to be surgically removed from the backs of those you love. The struggle is real, but bear with me on my journey as a young girl trying to make it in a big, scary world – I might just make it out alive. And who knows… maybe I’m not alone.