Tuesday 31st December 2024
I was supposed to write and publish this post around my birthday but ya boy was too busy with his... other priorities...
But alas, I have returned to write yet another blog post. This one will be a lot more personal than the previous 2 I’ve written so far, so yeah this is gonna be fun.
As I said before, I recently celebrated my birthday! Yaaaay! Specifically my... 18th birthday, less yay. This means that I’m now officially considered a legal adult in my country and (generally) worldwide. I can do a bunch of new exciting things I’ve always wanted to do like... register my library card under my own name, or be better equip to move out and... uh... well not much other stuff that I’d care about in all honesty. Funnily enough for most newly-turned adults, despite officially being of age most people’s parents still don’t respect them as such. So a lot of the freedoms one would get on their 18th birthdays are irrelevant due to parents being unwilling to surrender control of their child’s life to them. In some cases this is understandable, 18 year olds can be really fucking stupid sometimes and can accidentally make terrible life altering changes. On the other hand restricting the unimportant-in-the-long-term choices of someone who just turned 18 to that big of an extent just because of a hypothetical “bad choice” they could make proves that a parent has no trust in the person they’ve raised for 18 years. No trust to believe they would make smart educated decisions or know how to make big choices. Which just goes to show how amazing their parenting skills were, and could obviously lead to some extra fun side effects for them down the line. I don’t imagine its very controversial to say that feeling like your parents don’t trust you is one of the worst feelings in the world.
Now going straight back to a less depressing topic, a few days after I turned 18 I officially graduated highschool! “Finally! After 13 years of prison I’ve finally gotten out of the shit school system and can finally be my own person.” That’s what I hoped I’d be thinking once I left school but... no. When the realisation that my life will never be the same finally hit (especially since I’m not going to uni), all I really felt was an overwhelming sense of unknowing and uncertainty for my future. I don’t want to be forced to be do as I’m told day-in and day-out, but I cant deny it at least bought me a sense of safety. If what I’m doing turns out to be somehow wrong, I at least have somebody else to blame. I wouldn’t have the responsibility of my own long-term actions, I’d just be able to point the finger elsewhere at the huge waste of time I’d been committing my life to. But that’s not how it’s gonna work anymore. Now I have to choose which direction my life goes myself. I have to choose what I’ll be doing day to day, where I’ll be going, what job I’ll be working, etc. Its both a blessing and a curse to me, but I’m hoping I can begin to see the blessing part of this situation more.
Did i say less depressing? Oops...
But yeah... As I’ve said before, I’ve decided that I don’t really want to go to uni for the foreseeable future. I have no clue what I’d even do at uni. My initial plan was to take a year or 2 off to figure it out. I think it was a good plan and basically every teacher I asked at school supported it, but with how my life is going right now... I might never be able to go to uni. My decision to simply take a year off of school was made when I believed I’d still be able to mentally handle living with my parents for a few years. However through some more recent incidents with my parents I’ve realised that this just isn’t mentally feasible for me and that I need to move out ASAP. My current plan is to move out with my girlfriend before the end of next year, and in all likelihood to go flatting before then as well. After that, I’ll really be on my own for the first time, and I’m really hoping I can handle myself in a situation like this. Moving out and cutting contact with your parents at the age of 18 is definitely something most would consider a huge life change and pretty fuckin’ drastic. I’m saddened to have to resort to something like this, but at least it’ll mean that my life will truly become my own and I’ll be able to choose for myself for once.
Okay, onto the actual positive things.
Growing up in suburban areas really fuckin’ suck for kids (I swear this’ll turn positive in a sec). They’re very limiting, everything is super far away and its all designed around cars, you know, the thing kids cant exactly drive yet. While this is all its own separate issue, being older means I can go wherever I want whenever I want. I can go karaoke on a wim, or go to the nearby nightmarket for some kebabs, or call up a friend and go to their place. This is something I personally take for granted now, but is something I think we who have the freedom to do so should appreciate way more. I mean, just yesterday (as im writing this) I decided to just go to my local tech store and just buy some speakers for my pc since I’ve been meaning to, and on tuesday im going have finally saved up enough money to buy myself a fancy new 2tb SSD for my pc! I can spend time with my friends in a bigger variety of interesting places, and I’m going to be able to take my girlfriend to the aquarium for the first time as well. So growing up does have some benefits from time to time.
I’m also worried/excited to see how I’ll make friends too. I’ve definitely heard that making friends as an adult in New Zealand can be challenging but I’m excited to see the new friendships that might blossom in my adulthood. But I also cant help but be worried about that as well for obvious reasons. I have plenty of good friends right now but I’m not sure I’ll be with them forever... part of growing up is growing apart from the people you love/used to love, sometimes its slow and gradual and other times its faster then you can even blink. Its never really pleasant in either scenario. Which is why it’ll be very important for me to learn how to create new bonds with new people without a school-like environment from now on, if you have any suggestions or ideas for me to do so just feel free to email/dm me LMAO.
(PS, I’d like to have more people to talk to in general so if you think we’d mesh well due to shared interests or whatever else, feel free to shoot me an email! yuviiscool@proton.me)
I think my biggest issue at the end of the day, is that I’m afraid of change. I’m content enough with what I had and probably wouldn’t have minded if I could just go back to hs and continue my life as I always have when summer break ends. But that’s not how that works, is it? Despite things around me changing pretty regularly (though admittedly on a smaller scale) change still feels so unfamiliar and terrifying. Believe me I’ve tried like hell to escape change, to keep things static and still, too keep things comfortable and familar. But I know that eventually, no matter how much i wouldn’t want it to, a stagnant and unchanging life like that wouldn’t be what’s best for me. Weather I invite change into my life or weather it breaks my door down forcing my life to turn upside down again, change will come for me, for better or worse. I just need to learn to accept that.