I’ve always been a birthday-loving girl. The feeling of people gathering to celebrate you, the cake, the decorations, all of it. I feel like I’ve never really been an awkward person when celebrating my birthday. Still, as birthdays go, the awkwardness only arises from a family birthday party when an uncle makes a predictable remark about how many boyfriends you have after you blow out your candles. With that said, I’d say that I’m not the biggest fan of the attention, the gift-giving and the overly affectionate aspect of a birthday but rather the thought of my friends and family surrounding me with love and ultimately aging one year closer to who I want to be. My teenage years were an utter disaster, as I’m sure they were for a vast majority of us teenage girls. But with that utter disaster comes some of the best memories, new best friends and most significant life lessons that have brought me a different outlook on how I’m approaching my twenties.
I remember turning 13 and thinking this was it. This was the peak of my life. I was finally a teenager. I quickly realized that your early teens just age you out of your awkward pubescent stage of life where you realize boys aren’t ‘gross’ anymore. Growing older made me realize that the fun and learning really come about in your late teens. From 16 to 18, I thought I ruled the world. I was at my peak bossiness, had just lost the last bit of my puberty uglies and so had the rest of the boys my age (they realized they don’t need a haircut every 2 weeks and can grow it out). With that, it’s fair to say that grade 10 is where you begin the ‘cool age’ in high school. You don’t really have to follow the rules, you know all of your teachers and you finally start to dip your toes into finding what truly makes you passionate and happy, rather than doing things just to fit in. Those years taught me humility and helped me understand that you can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Growing out of my people pleaser and ‘ruler of everything’ phase, I learned that there’s more to life than doing things to make people like you, and if people don’t appreciate you or who you’re becoming, then they’re not worth keeping around.
From age 18 until now, I feel like I’ve morphed into the type of person I’d like to see thrive in the future. I’ve started to appreciate the beauty of getting older and embracing the not-so-lucky things that happen to me. I feel like 19 and my teenage years in general have taught me so many lessons (the majority hit me like a truck at 19, but I digress). Some say that God gives mountains to people who he believes can overcome them. At times during my teens, it felt like I’d been climbing for centuries and once I got to the top, I’d see another mountain in the distance.
Your teenage years are hard, no matter what anyone chooses to believe or what people like to tell you. When you’re learning who you are and what you’re supposed to become at such a young age, it feels like people expect you to have it all figured out. Rather than beating myself up for not knowing my every next step in life, like I used to in my early teens, I’m choosing to accept and appreciate not knowing what comes next. Going into my twenties, I’m excited about simply not knowing. I’ve learned that it’s nearly impossible to calculate or control where you’re going and what’s in front of you.
In a nutshell, the eulogy at the funeral of my teens would start by reminding me and others who struggle with the death of their teens: let go. Everything that you think is happening to you is actually happening FOR YOU. Appreciate the moments that leave you questioning everything. Take the mistakes you make and the mountains put in front of you as stepping stones that are bringing you one step closer to having your life at least 75% figured out. Stop waiting for your peak! Every year has its peaks and plummeting valleys but it’s important to take it daily rather than waiting for a revolutionary self-realization to come to you. And if all else fails, at least be grateful that you didn’t end up with that stoner boy you had a crush on in the tenth grade like you thought you wanted. Good things happen in mysterious ways:)
Peace & Love,
Gracee