A week ago, I finally turned twenty-one. It was funny, though. Despite being twenty-one, I still felt like I was seventeen. Sometimes in my life, I feel like my past is still my present. It doesn’t matter if I have bangs now or if I attend college. It still feels like I am waiting to step onto the train and for it to take me anywhere, but it always passes my stop as if it doesn’t see me.
There are many reasons why I feel this way, but I’m only going to talk about one. And, unfortunately for me, it’s also the most embarrassing one. While I am finally able to drink, I still can’t drive. In the United States, teenagers can get their license when they turn sixteen. I never got mine. The reasons for this are endless, but the main one is that I did not need a permit then. I was doing fine living with my parents, but that was over four years ago. It’s an entirely different story now.
I’m three years into college, and I need a car. It’s not a matter of want. It is a matter of need. Not having a car on campus makes living on campus ten times more complicated than it needs to be. Something as simple as getting groceries just got a lot harder. It is hard, and it is also not fun. I want to do many things, but it’s hard to do them because I need a car. Because of that, my life, at times, is as exciting as counting sand. However, that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that I feel like I’m behind in life.
It feels like I’m twenty steps behind in life all because I don’t have a car. I may have turned twenty-one, but I am still seventeen. It feels like I have not left my childhood at all. That is completely ridiculous, which took me a long time to realize. I shouldn’t feel guilty because I can’t drive. The world should feel guilty for placing these ridiculous expectations on me and everyone. Society puts so much pressure on us. Society places so many expectations on us. When those expectations are placed on us, and we don’t live up to them, it feels like we have failed. It feels like we are not where we are supposed to be in life. But what people need to know is that expectations aren’t promises. And the only thing in life that is promised is death. Nothing else in life is promised.
I was able to look at life in an entirely different way after I made that realization. It felt like I could breathe again. I could also look back and realize how much not having a license benefited me. So many strangers offered me rides (which I’m eternally grateful for) and have become my closest friends. It also made me independent in a way I never thought I would be. There are so many things that I was forced to learn how to do because I don’t have a license. That makes me a lot more adult than I initially thought. So, while it may feel like I’m still catching up in life, I’m actually right on schedule.
Featured Image by Allison Schmidt
