Three days ago, Elmo Lawrence turned 20–an age where one leaves teenage and moves on to adulthood. More specifically, young adulthood. There’s no denial in a person’s necessity of having transition time, from teenage to adulthood. Especially people like me, who still felt like a teenager in my 20th birthday.
It sounds stupid now when I’m trying to recall my 20th birthday, it’s like I was losing myself. With two assignments due the next day and the fact that I wasn’t ready to leave my teenage and move on to the next stage of life, no wonder I was so freaked out. Fortunately there were my friends congratulating me, cheering me to lift my spirit, but that didn’t do much yet. This is about a big change in my life, and I couldn’t contemplate it with two BIG assignments due the following day. Well, shit happened sometimes, but this isn’t the whole story.
For the next two days, shit kept happening–I felt like the world’s so fucked up and was trying to play rough on me. I don’t know, being 20 I found myself as a stranger even to myself–the man in this body wasn’t Elmo Lawrence. I was someone else, with totally different character and behavior, and the man I had become was a total basket case full of nuts. I felt more claustrophobic than ever, and respond harshly to strangers–and when another shit happened, I just freaked out.
But finally, the holiday comes–and here comes hope that this madness will be over. There’s plenty of time for me to contemplate my next stage of life and the whole process of moving onto it, and I finally decided to move on; what the hell, it had happened anyway. I understood my new role as well as responsibility in being a young adult, and quickly found out my first challenge into my quest for maturity–to know the qualities of a full-grown man, and to tamper them into my character. This is a point of no turning back. I am to be a man, and I’ll be a man.
But, of course, like what everyone said ‘there’s a kid in all of us,’ I know that being a teenager gave us all an important lesson–there’s a teenager in all of us who have experienced it. The rebellious, overzealous energy of a teenager puts him in a state of keep fighting on, as long as there’s a reason to fight. This would be a priceless lesson one often forget when he had ventured far into adulthood.
The teen spirit is something that always inspire me. Even though I’ve grown up, even though I’ve moved on to be an adult man, the teen energy I once had is still here in me, and it’ll take more than a lifetime to spend. The saying is true: There’s a teenager in all of us.
We might be worried if we had to face a big change in our life, but ready or not, we have to move on. In fact, we’ll move on eventually. Getting old is a sure thing, though it’s up to us to be mature.
I’ve grown up. I’ve moved on. Even though shit keeps happening, even though the world’s playing rough on me, I’ll keep on moving, coz that’s what I’m about to be–a real man.
Til next time.
