If you'd known me at the beginning of last year, you wouldn't believe it.
I was so scared of the future. Scared to go to college, and forget about a college far away - I was scared just to attend classes at the community college. What if the classes are too hard? What if I fail? I was scared to move out of my parents' house, however far away that day may be. What if I can't support myself? What if I go broke and end up living in a box on the side of the street? I was even scared just to turn eighteen, because of all the sudden duties that went rattling around my brain at the thought. Insurance! Rent! Legal adult! Car payments! Tuition! Et cetera, et cetera.
I grew gradually and very slightly less afraid as time went by. I turned eighteen, and everything was more or less the same as it was when I was seventeen. Still in high school (for a few more months, at any rate), still living with my parents, still not fiscally responsible for much of anything except gas money. I started at the local community college, and everything was more or less the same as it was when I was in high school, except for more freedom and a looser schedule. Maybe the classes were faster-paced, too, but nothing I couldn't handle.
And yet, there was still fear. I admit that I was reluctant even to fill out scholarship applications for Saginaw Valley State University or apply for a voter ID, just because those actions were symbols of moving forward, of growing up and taking on the roles of adulthood. And I have never been one of those who are so eager to grow up. I am intelligent. I realized what growing up meant - responsibility, bills, financial problems, dependents, struggle. I reached for Neverland and fairies and Peter Pan and held on as long as I could. In a way, I'm still holding on, because my spirit has enough of a four-year-old in it that I'll probably still believe in blowing bubbles and picking daisies when I'm eighty years old.
The original plan was to go away to a college as soon as money permitted and go on living in my parents' house during holidays and summers for as long as I could.
How plans have changed...
I'm a few weeks in to my second semester at St. Clair County Community College and plan to continue there until fall of 2011. And now I'm saving up money for my own car and an apartment, both of which I hope to have in hand by summertime. Not a great car, but a car. Some cheap, for-sale-by-owner car, hopefully at or under $500, maybe dropping some luxuries like a radio and air conditioning so I can make sure my car will run okay for the next few years. Not a great apartment, either. Maybe no air conditioning there, either, not very large, maybe no pool or gym or laundry appliances, but cheap enough to afford. Just a little place I can come home to, and it'll be mine. Or mine and my friend Becky's, since she's planning to be my roommate at least for the summer.
Which was the original idea here: Just an apartment for the summer, if I could possibly swing it. Subletting, of course. That'd pretty much be the only option. And now...get my own car, rent a place and stay there as long as I can afford it - say all of next school year. Bring my cat with me, maybe get a cat-friendly dog. (I'd like a dog. Not sure why, but I just feel like I'd need a dog to go with my apartment.) When I go away, live off-campus (largely so I can keep my dog).
And I'm not scared any more.
Sometimes it seems awfully big, this whole idea - when I remind myself about car insurance on top of the car (though my mother has luckily said that if I can get a cheap car for cash, then my parents may - depending, of course, on their finances - be able to help me with the insurance) and furniture and/or utilities on top of the apartment - and I start to wonder if I can do it. I feel a certain sense - not quite of dread, or at least not of fear, but just sort of the feeling you get when your bedroom's really, really messy and you know you have to clean it today and you really, really don't want to but you know you have to, so you do anyways.
I'm going to do it. Becky's older brother doesn't think we'll go through with it. Not so much due to finances, but because he thinks we'll lose our nerve. I say that just gives us more of a reason to do it - just to prove him wrong. I don't know where this calm, independent streak suddenly came from, but it's helping me out. It's planning out my future for me.
And yes, it is awfully big. Maybe scary, to some people, and to me still sometimes, in a way. But the same part of me that used to be terrified of becoming an adult - maybe that four-year-old part that still believes in Neverland and fairies and Peter Pan - is finally saying, "To grow up will be an awfully big adventure."
Like Truth said, everybody else did all the nitpicks. I've noticed one, and by the time I looked up to see if the others had said it, I forgot where it was... Sorry for that.