A million dreams

I was listening to ‘a million dreams’ the other day and probably some other song too that I can’t remember at the moment, and I was struck with a sense that my childhood had come to an end. Maybe when I’m a lot older, my college years will still seem like childhood to me, but when I’m in my 20s, when I’m in my 30s and I think about my childhood; when I remember childhood summers and friends and school, I feel like I know what I’ll remember. And those things have already happened. And it was a sad-ish realisation, but also just made me so nostalgic and introspective. I spent so much of my life waiting to become 16. I was satisfied with turning 13 for a while, but 16 always seemed like the goal. That was the apex teenager. The alpha of the pack. Part of this is probably because the books that got me into reading were books about teenage girls and their struggles. I waited so long to ‘have’ those struggles. And honestly, I couldn’t tell you anything that was particularly special about being 16 now that it’s all said and done. I’m grateful for that year and I mean, I made special memories. But I realised really early on that I didn’t enjoy drama and so most of those ‘16-year old experiences’ of friends and boys and drama, didn’t really happen for me at that time. I think they happened a lot earlier, what with boarding school and getting to know people intimately at a younger age than most other people. I remember the days before my 17th birthday and asking myself what I had been waiting so long for. I turned 18 and I feel like that was a pretty big year. I hadn’t spent most of my life waiting for it and maybe that’s because I knew that 18 marked the end of something, or at least, the beginning of the end. In my 18th year (or really 19th if you do the math) I had to officially take responsibility for certain things since I wasn’t a minor anymore. And that brought a lot of stress with it, but I also think a lot of maturity. I applied for new visas on my own, new passports on my own. I graduated (without the ceremony) and moved countries on my own. And I’m glad. I’m grateful for this stage in my life. But I kind of wish I had been more intentionally grateful back then too. The adults tell us. They tell us to treasure our childhood, and we ignore them as if they weren’t once kids wishing to be grown up too. It’s not that I feel like I don’t have amazing memories to look back on, because I do. In the convoluted, messy, coming of age story that is anyone’s childhood, I have many great things to remember. But I also remember that yearning to speed things up. To be somewhere else. To progress to a stage where I wouldn’t struggle with the same things. And to be honest, there are some years I wouldn’t want to live again. Years I’m glad are in the past. Years of learning how to walk by myself and eat on my own and make friends all over again. But without those years, the next ones wouldn’t have been as memorable or as important. When I look back on my life now, I remember the tears and the failure as much as I remember the laughter and success. I thank God for both. Because even though I wouldn’t pray or wish for difficulty, I could not be who I am now if I didn’t go through those things. And if I can be grateful for where I am now, I have to be willing to acknowledge the circumstances that got me here, good and bad. And I think a main goal of mine now is to be present. I don’t feel the anticipation of any other major age the way I felt the anticipation for 16, and maybe that’s a good thing. When I was coming to college, I felt like I was coming to the official end of the last 8 years of my life. And while they don’t make up to half of my life, they were my MOST formative years by far. Turning 19 recently felt like that again. I remembered that if I was still in Nigeria, I wouldn’t be able to go teen church camp anymore; it’s only for the 13 to 18 year olds. I remember being so excited the first year I could go, and it’s crazy to think that I'm past the age limit now. I’m not in high school anymore. I'm not trying to reinvent myself every semester anymore. I don’t see all of my friends everyday anymore. I don’t go home for every holiday anymore. Granted, not everything changes when you leave high school and not all the challenges go away. But a lot of things DO change. I definitely feel some sadness and some reluctance to say goodbye to my childhood, but I feel even more resolve to be intentional about everything, especially my walk with God as I transition to adulthood. Diary of a 19-year-old-not-so-teenaged-anymore-girl… Dera