Fear

An acquaintance of mine once asked me if there was anything on this Earth that scared me. It was not the first time I had been asked the question. I am rather fearless when it comes to things like talking to my teachers, telling people what I think etc.. I have been blessed (to a certain extent) with the sheer grace, beauty and joy of not caring - mainly, about what my peers come to think of me. I don't wear make up because it's tedious, a reflection of low self esteem and ugly. I also don't dress up for anyone, and the days when I do dress up, it's for me.

I despise talking behind a person's back. I think it's the most cowardly and pathetic thing a person could do. Personally, if I have something which I must so desperately get off my chest about a peer (which I rarely do), I tell them to their face. When the hobo-esque girls from my school come to me and request my lunch, I politely (which makes me look partially psychotic) tell them that they are stooping down to the level of hobos and that they shouldn't do that.

So what comes of my brutal honesty? For one, true friends. I know that the people I am really friends with like me for the person I am in my soul, instead of for the person I pretend to be. For another, confused, and partly dirty  looks. People question why I just did something or said something. In some cases, they tell me that they wish they had enough guts to do what I did. In others, they look at me in shock and ask my why I would ever do such a thing, and then confide in me that they think the same. Then of course, there are the ones who flat out disagree.

These sorts of confrontations, and this confidence I portray (which may seem cocky at points) has helped me make a name for myself. I am known as the girl with no filter. No filter to think about whether what I say will have any negative repercussions. It's not that I'm stupid, illogical and uncalculated; I just choose not to be in some situations.

But everyone has some fear(s), and through the courses of life, you learn what they are.

You notice that you cannot stand on top of the Burj Khalifa and look down without sending shivers down your spine etc..

So what's my fear? As I said, I get asked it commonly enough, but have never really spent the day thinking about it.

That day, I took the bus and stared out the window thinking all about what I was scared of, I left out the trivial things, and then it came to me. My greatest and most terrifying fear was the daunting notion of growing up. I cannot even begin to explain how terrified I am of getting older. I am only 16 years old, true, but that is exactly what makes it even more scary. Every day that passes by scares me, every morning that I wake up insinuates fear in my soul. I cannot cope with getting older.

I am only 16 years old, yet I already feel depressed that I am not younger. I am only 16 years old, but I wish that I was still 6 years old, or better yet, a baby.  

I wish that life didn't seem so complicated. I eish that I didn't have to commit to anything; that I didn't have any responsibilities. I wish that no one depended on me. I wish that I was free, free from worrying about making a mistake, a mistake which could affect my future. Ah, future, how saddening you've become.

I was raised with this notion that when I grow up I could be whatever I wanted to be. In my mind I painted this picture of growing up and being free. Travelling and doing whatever my heart desires on a whim. Now, don't get me wrong, it is possible if your parents are stacked and let you do so, but if not, then it's another thing. The notion of freedom was wrong, too. The older you get, the more formalities become expected of you. It's so sad. Old people don't think of children as bad, if they don't want to do something

Each day, my parents ask me what I did in school. I tell them, partially. And I am slowly coming to the realization that the grades you get, though not defining of you as a person or soul, pave the way to existence. So much emphasis is put on grades in high schools, and unless those grades are sublime, you may as well forget about university. 

I'm starting to see that good people, smart people, who simply find better things to do with their youth than spend it slaving over meaningless homework, can't become people. They become poor, uneducated creatures. That is what I am on the path to becoming and it saddens me, and it scares me of growing up. At the same time, I can't bring myself to actually working for my grades because they aren't what make you smart. But, I can't do anything.

I don't want to be one of those people, who wakes up one morning and looks back in tears at her life. I don't want to regret my life, but I know that it is bound to happen. I'll look back with rue either because I didn't have a satisfying childhood or because I have a terrible adult life working as a janitor, picking up womens' used menstrual pads. At the moment, I'm picking my childhood, but when I am an adult, I'll probably be wishing that I had given up a childhood for a better future.
I feel like there are so many children, who have missed out on the beauty of being young, are lost. They submitted to the cage which is otherwise known as school. It doesn't let you out, and it is methodical, pointless and dull. Those kids, the ones that could never see beyond the cage weren't unable to do so because they were blind, but because they were unable to provide the time from their routine to think. To think of exiting the steel bars, to think of there being a whole world beyond the cage, and even if they did, they were too scared to ask for removal from the cage, and to scared to rebel and exit the cage themselves.

I heard in a song once "I got time, while she got freedom". The line stuck with me, because that made me realize that having one without the other is pointless. Having good grades, but wasting your life working for them, wasting your youth like that is pointless (not totally). But having those grades is necessary to continue onto the future. Education is more important that schooling. They go hand-in-hand. Recently, I have come to the realization that it might be better for me to start believing that schooling is more important than education, at least for the time being.
So, would I go back to my infancy again tomorrow if I had the chance? Yes, I most definitely would. I would go back in a heartbeat. Not just for those simpler, less stressful, more forgiving and easier times, but for the chance to redo things, to tell my parents where they went wrong, to keep the traits my parents molded that were good, and to tell them to avoid planting the seed for the bad ones. I'd make myself a better child, in a lot of ways. But I can't go back, can I? And I'm too lazy to change, aren't I?