lucybychoice

04-08-2025

I steal the time to write this from my studies, which may not be the right decision down the line because if my exams do not go well my GPA will plummet more than it already has and I can kiss grad school goodbye, and I won’t be able to do the work I want, I won’t live the life I want, I’ll grow bitter and old and alone. I’m so young yet already picturing my grey hair, my bad knees. Today we’re talking aging and growing and getting older.

I turned twenty years old one month and one day ago and around the same time I posted the following on my spam instagram account:

I think that little paragraph is a good expression of my feelings, but a little deeper diving doesn’t hurt, so let’s dive a little deeper.

Who ever wishes to grow older? I did, for a very long time, I couldn’t wait to start my adult life, be in charge of my days, exercise the independence and autonomy my parents so often praised during my early childhood. And now I’m 20, which is still stupid young, but I’m doing all that and more, and I haven’t called my parents in a few weeks. I’ve been surviving off shitty frozen pizzas and I have bills to pay and it all sucks.
At the same time I can go to formal events with my roommates and organize my outfits however I wish. And if I want to sit on my phone on the couch all evening I can do that. I can go see friends I haven’t talked to in a year and maybe I sleep over and I don’t need to let anyone know about it. And not talking to my mom means we don’t have to fight. And taking everything in consideration I don’t want to grow too much more but I’ll take the frozen pizzas if that means I can go out with friends and get really hammered while listening to live music. I’ll pay my bills with pleasure (well… maybe not pleasure. But you get it) if I have a little bit left over to get takeout even though it’s 4pm and that means I’ll skip dinner.

I think the part I struggle with the most is not the change in lifestyle but the change in me. I learned in class that there are two parts to the self: the “me” which is the objective self as seen from the outside, and the “I” which is the internal consciousness. The “I” helps to provide continuity between past, present, and future, because you experience all from the same point of view.
And yet with growth and aging comes such change that I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a certain disconnect between my past and my present. I remember the “me” from a few years ago but I can’t remember the “I,” and that’s the scary part in my mini speech above. I forgot how I used to think, how I used to interact, how I used to feel. I used to say I love you scary fast and now it rarely ever comes out, and I’m not sure why that is, and I can’t see myself ever going back.

People have always come and gone but in the past no matter what I’ve stayed. And now so often I find myself withdrawing, and I stop reaching out, and I quiet down. I used to talk for hours when running with a friend and these days it’s not uncommon for me to keep complete silence. And now I come and go, and I’m not sure what it means, maybe it’s a psychological symptom, maybe I’ve just changed, but either way, I look back and I can’t remember how I used to stay, why I used to stay. Honestly maybe I never stayed, maybe I’ve always come and gone, I don’t know, that’s the scary part.

There is so much change that comes with growing up and (I’m repeating myself at this point) it is so so scary. And yet (still repeating myself) there is so much good. In growth comes knowledge, it’s normal not to remember how you were when you didn’t know something you now do.
Yes it’s April but it’s still snowing outside, like it was in January, like it was last April. All that’s the same, some good some bad sticks around, some good some bad changes.

It’ll happen no matter what. You don’t really have a choice. Do welcome it all anyway.

And time passes, and time passes.

lucybychoice