growing up (i don't know)

The end of the school year always finds me rather sentimental and nostalgic, even more so than usual. I cried on my last day of kindergarten. I don't even know what I'm going to do on my last day of high school. Lately I've been thinking about ~growing up~ and how it seems to come in little surprising spurts. When I was younger, I was so afraid of growing up and getting old and I don't know, all that stuff. But now it's happening all around me and it's unavoidable and, yeah, it's bittersweet.

It's like when you see your friend driving a car and it's just so strange and surreal but it hits you harder than all those Facebook statuses about being a licensed driver and all those obligatory "Don't run anyone over! LOL" comments.

And when you're talking about things and you're like, wow, I feel like an actual teenager, which is weird because when you were a kid teenagers were always this unattainable standard and now you're realizing that of course it's not like that -- but at the same time, it kind of is.

Like when you're sitting at a coffee shop with your friend and you're actually drinking coffee and studying for finals and feeling really sophisticated but at the same time really vulnerable as you lay crumpled dollar bills on the counter and give the cashier a nervous smile.

Like when your parents decide to get a new car and get rid of the van you've had for ten years, which is maybe not something you should maybe feel sad about but the more you think about how you're never going to see that familiar green minivan ever again, the more it seems like a metaphor for your childhood and the closer you are to wanting to cry. Because the new car is nice and has a sunroof but it smells like a rental car and the leather isn't comfortably worn in and the seatback pockets aren't filled with a menagerie of random items like they used to be.

And suddenly you're at a graduation party (or at least, the remnants of one) and you're thinking how in two years, that will be you graduating, which is crazy because two years ago was the end of eighth grade and that seems like just yesterday.

It's all happening so fast. I feel like my life is an exponential equation and it's been picking up speed since I was born and I'm just accelerating towards death. Maybe that's a morbid way of putting it but it's the truth. These thoughts are terrifying but they only seem overwhelming if you think about them. So I try not to.