A Speeding Train Towards The Future

When I was younger I don't know what I expected really. I think I must have expected that things would magically be different one day. I would suddenly grow up. No pain. No long and thought out journey getting me through my school years. Just the flicking of one magic switch and a difference will have been made.

But I'm not 8 anymore, I don't see things the same way. I know now that with change comes a great deal of pain and heartache.

These past few years have provided me with nothing but change. Getting older, having to actually grow up, to slowly become an adult. And, my god, I am far from ready for this.

Looking back, things were slowly changing. Day by day, month by month, year by year. I didn't see it at the time. I wasted my youth waiting to be 16, waiting to leave school, waiting to grow up and now I'm here. I am one year off from leaving my friends to disappear off to university. I am five or so years off moving out of the house I have lived in for the entirety of my life. I am unwillingly crawling towards the rest of my life and I just wish it would all slow down.

In the years I spent wishing for an end to be childhood and a beginning to my adulthood I seemed to have forgotten to cherish moments. Far too often now I look back on times where I was a happy, carefree child. Those year seven tutor times when I would be speaking to people I was sure I would be close to way past school. The distinct memories from school trips gone by. The holidays where I made 'life-long' friends.

It's a painful journey, growing up but, its only painful when you notice the changes occurring only too quickly.

I find myself each day getting an 'its too late' feeling. All those exams I could have revised harder for. All those people who left my school last summer never to return. The countless number of people in the year above me who I fear getting close to because there are only 7 months until they go off to university and leave me behind.

Too many aspects of my life are now simply becoming old memories. I fear the day when the daily occurrences that I dismiss as being boring will become embedded in my memory of what was. Who knows what will still be in my life and what won't. What I class as the most important thing in my life right now may not be relevant next year, let alone in 5, 10, 15 years from now.

Acceptance is the hardest part of the journey of life. Accepting that memories, people, moments are gone. Some never to return. Accepting that you just need to move on. Accepting that whatever happens to you is insignificant anyway, you wont stop the world from turning and the sun from rising.

Have I wasted my life? Why have I only now learnt to treasure moments as they are happening? There are so many people who I never even made the effort to get to know and in 19 months they will have exited my life. People I once sat next to everyday, those I smiled at in the corridor. My only communication will be exchanging likes on Instagram posts with new found friends from university.

I don't want to aimlessly be drifting in and out of peoples lives. I don't want to be nothing more than a mere friend they once spoke to or shared memories with. But I know that I can't force myself to keep people around when they are in need of leaving in order to grow.

I just wish it would all slow down for a short while. It seems like every moment is racing way from me at top speed and I can't do anything about it. The only thing within my power is to remember moments as the happy days they were when I had the privilege to enjoy them.

--- Aimee ---