Halloween just ended, but one of the most frightening things went unspoken this year… growing up.

There is so much anxiety that comes with the thought of being an adult.

There are the ideas of getting a job, going to college, paying taxes, buying a house, buying a car, having a family, being married, having a hopeful lifelong career. (As if we all know how to pay taxes or buy a house or car. Yay for being clueless and winging it, am I right?)

With everything on my mind, I have realized that our childhood is ending and that everything is happening way too fast.

I remember being five years old with my Play-Doh in kindergarten. Now, I am a junior in high school.

I am doing all of these things I have only seen in cliché teen movies, like going to prom, hanging out with my friends on the weekend, jamming out to songs while I am driving by myself, going to Friday night varsity football games.

Many of us have known each other since we got to high school, middle school, and even elementary school. We are watching each other grow up, take on challenges, learn, live.

In a matter of time, we could be married, have families of our own, be successful or not in life.

You could be scrolling through whatever social media platform is popular by then and see that one girl from your sophomore English class just had her third child with her husband of however many years.

We will not be the happy-go-lucky kids we are now. We would have grown up and changed, and we are already in the process of doing so right now. Some of us are already in relationships, or are leading organizations, employed, paying our own bills.

We are becoming more responsible and mature.

All of this, simply put, is so… freaky.

And to add to the already present anxiety, as high schoolers, we are expected to have this plan for the rest of our lives. We have to know where we want to go to college, what we want to major in, what career we want.

I barely have a clue as to what I want to do with my life and I know a lot of us are the same way.  

It can be very stressful; trying to make a plan for my future. I am not going to lie, I worry about it a lot. I do not know for sure what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I have had people tell me to stop thinking about then and start thinking about now because now is where I am. I try to do that because honestly, thinking about everything freaks me out, but it can be so hard.

Fear comes with the unknown, and all of our futures are unknown. So yes, I am nervous. Yes, I am going to think about it.

I, and many of us, have no idea what we are doing and have no idea where we are going to be in the future. I do not like it, but it is inevitable. Aging is inevitable, so all we can do is try to make our futures the best they can be.

These responsibilities are not all that bad though. They let us be independent.

I definitely need them because I will not let myself be a 40 year old, mom’s basement living, adult. I will go to college. I will get a job. I will be able to support myself. I hope you will too.

I do not know if everything will work out, but right now, I am riding on the hope that I will figure all of this out and that I will live a happy life as an adult.

I am just going to enjoy and live life where I am now. Because right now, I have everything and everyone I need to be happy and make lifelong memories I will look back on when I am the adult I stress about being.