Growing Up Is Hard To Do

In ten short days I will be twenty: a real grown up; no longer able to hide behind the mask of adolescence. I am tired of letting my fears make my choices for me. This is my way of taking control- taking a leap of faith. I will be honest here. You might not always like the things that I have to say, but I am going to do my best to be true to myself. This is my life, and I am finally ready to start living it.

The truth is that I am struggling, and for as long as I can remember I have felt this way. My life hasn't been easy. I don't know anyone who has had an easy life and I'm not trying to compare my troubles to anyone else's, I just want to be truthful about my own experience. Everything in my life as of late has been complicated by my past. To put it simply I am unhappy more of the time than I'd like to admit, maybe even depressed. Most of the time it's hard for me to get up in the mornings which is why I've been struggling with school and work. My financial situation isn't the greatest right now, and a lot of that stems from me missing class and having to repay the VA for those classes. A few months ago I moved into an apartment with my roommate, Heather. Now I have real bills to pay and the responsibility is difficult to bear. When I was younger my parents always told me that I had no idea how hard life could be, and I guess, in a sense they were right. Being a teenager is hard, I will be the first to admit that, but being an adult is even harder. At sixteen my biggest concerns were passing AP World History and whether or not Connor Dunn had feelings for me. Now on top of school, family, friends, and the search for romance, I have to worry about work and whether or not I am going to make enough money this month to pay all of my bills. It is so unbelievably stressful, but I'm finding out the hard way that you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need. I know that everything happens for a reason, even if I don't yet know what that reason is. God keeps showing me, day after day, that no matter how hard life gets it can always get worse. But somehow, incredibly, the things that I don't think I can handle, I can. As I approach this new stage in my life called adulthood God is showing me this incredible power and strength that I had no idea has been inside of me all of this time. Times are still tough, and I am still so afraid because I don't know how things are going to work out, but I believe that they will work out. I can do all things, through Christ who gives me strength.