decay

i've always dreamed about growing up, about being independent and living life according to my own terms. but now that i'm here, i sometimes feel like i'm drowning in a sea of the unknown. of course, there's beauty in this time of my life, the freedom, the energy, and all the great things around me. but sometimes i'm held back by all the fears and anxieties that encompass the future. am i doing this correctly? am i living to its full potential?

I’m currently by myself in an airport, on my way home from college for the first time. I turn 18 tomorrow. I’m terrified. My mom says that there’s no reason to, but I look too closely at everything, I look at the world through a giant microscope and there are several reasons to be scared. I know the way society and men talk about eighteen year old girls and it makes me nauseous. When do I stop being a child and start being sexy? Why can’t I have control over that transition?

i think it's scary. i think it's the one time i will ever be allowed to be happy. i hope it will give me everything i want. i think growing up sucks but i need to be at my happiest and free right now or else.

Responses have been collected anonymously from different individuals, with their consent.

sorry i think you'd prefer happy thoughts but marginalized kids are made to feel horrible about themselves all through their childhood. i never did anything to anyone .. girls used to make disgusted faces at me if we accidentally touched in the hallways

I find it absolutely terrifying the thought of being seen as an adult and all the pressure, having a routine day in day out, it feels awful and the worst thing is how incredibly lonely it looks to be an adult. I wish I could stay a teenager and be able to make dumb mistakes and see my friends every day without all the pressure and working a full time job :(

It's both great and terrifying, but I think that depends on your upbringing. I think the idea of independence that is linked to adulthood is amazing, but having to fetch for myself all the time is very scary. The future is odd, it feels like we've been at peace for too long and history tells me that this is not common so I'm afraid something major (besides climate change) like a war might happen, or a new even bigger economic collapse. So I'm excited about growing up but not about the future itself, because I fantasize about adulthood in my current circumstances, I can't imagine being an adult in a more difficult reality.

I think it's kind of scary because I'll have less and less time to myself.
And also use the little time I've got for myself (on weekends for example) to ...work on my home and myself and it's just...so much work :D

when i was young, i think i felt so ready to grow up and do whatever my teenage friends or what teenagers in movies did. but now that i'm older, all i want is to go back to my childhood. i'm a very nostalgic person. i think people tend to look at their childhood through rose colored glasses when they're older because childhood has this magical, eternal sort of happiness that an adult can't seem to experience anymore. but i think being an adult comes with wisdom of knowing that it won't always be okay, and that's fine. i think it also helps to know that you'll find happiness in some way. no matter how fleeting. in ways you don't expect.

i love the independence and freedom of adulthood. just the mere idea living my life the way i want and owning my own home excites me. but it's also really scary having to navigate this brutal world. honestly as someone in the middle of adolescence and adulthood, everything feels all the more uncertain and terrifying. it's okay tho. i think i'll be okay.

there are so many things i want for my future. i have a whole pinterest board dedicated to how i want my future life to look - curating my own space, spending time with the people i care about in places i want to see. i'm a simple person with simple desires, but now that i think about it, the board itself is not realistic, esp since what i want does require a lot of money in some way. but it's nice to yearn for something.

it’s terrifying, but underneath the terror is a careful hope. it’s a really complex thing, I think. I’m 14 now, I’m a freshman in highschool. and only this previous summer did I start to realize that it’s all slipping away. In the past months I’ve centered myself and calmed myself down about it but that won’t ever push away the always-approaching feeling of growing up. It’s the feeling of looking around, realizing your hair is longer than it was last time you looked in a mirror, realizing the tree you slept in all those years is dying (and you can’t do anything but mourn), realizing it’s been 3 years since you’ve spoken to the person you love most in the world. It’s all fleeting. It’s time to go. And that you can’t do anything about it. I think a lot of what makes growing up so scary is that you’re helpless to it. You can’t wait or linger, you can’t ask for more time. I’m 14 now, but soon I’ll be 15, then 16, then 17 and 18 and 19 and 20. And all the numbers after that. And I am so scared it’ll all go by and I won’t have even noticed. That I’ll still be looking out my bedroom window watching the leaves fall. But even with the fear, I don’t want to drop the delicate hope I’ve been carrying for so long. I mean, growing up is even more scary for me than for other people I think, just because of my own life. I don’t have financial stability and I’ll have to support myself by the time I’m 17, I don’t have anyone to walk the journey of growing up with. But despite these things, I still want to believe I’ll find freedom and joy and start to understand who I am. I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want to face the future. It feels like I won’t make it through. But I do believe it’ll be for the better.

If climate change doesn’t kill me then starvation or homelessness might. I have no hope of getting into the field I want and I can’t make my hobbies lucrative, so really my only employment opportunities are menial jobs that make me want to kill myself. I dream of one day being financially secure enough to have a house, a baby, and the ability to take time off when I need/want to - which feels so odd when I remember the bigger, grander dreams I had when I was younger; what were once assured things - financial security, the possibility of my own family - have become all that I strive for, since anything else is beyond impossible.

It sucks but theres beauty in the necessity of it? The change and the growth, being the one to carry on legacies and traditions but also suddenly becoming the person who creates those things too?? Taxes?? Who is she?? Being able to afford a Costco membership?? Couldnt be me. But suddenly being in a position where I can make genuine impact and change?? Terrifyingly awesome. I can eat a whole cake for dinner and no one can stop me but on the otherside I can take responsibility for my siblings and love and support them better than our parents did.

Idk this kinda went all over the place but I think I made my point?? Scary but super cool 👍🏻

Growing up is hard and turbulent. It is something I never wanted to do, but I felt pressured to do because all my friends seemed so much more mature and put together than I was. If I was grown up, I could walk around town by myself, drive a car, say bad words, use my own money. But I was already having fun being myself. Now that I'm an adult, I fulfilled those wishes. I'm in college with a job and a license. I also miss being a kid, as I am sure many do. As a kid I had true freedom, in my art, in my imagination, while knowing I had something to come home to no matter how flawed and broken it sometimes could be. It is unfortunate to feel like you have peaked in childhood. As an adult, I feel restricted by my hurting body and my chronic fatigue. I feel restricted by how complex and loud the world has become. Most of all, I feel ashamed for having hope when it seems like nobody I know does.

It's daunting yet exciting a mixture of ambiguous feelings especially in these unprecedented times.

It is terrifying, but better than we think it'll be

I feel like after university my life will be way less structured than it is now, and that mostly scares me, but I have hope that somehow I will manage to make it work. I study computer science and all I'm ever told about it is that it will be relatively easy for me to get a job in the field, but honestly that makes me feel a little sick. I want to be older, I want to be as independent as I possibly can but the idea of work being the only constant in my life is very unappealing. In school at least I can't be fired, well I gues I can fail, but that wouldn't happen because I have one bad day, you know? I am terrified of my skills and knowledge constantly being judged by someone above me, I don't want to be in an environment where the stakes are so high that mistakes can turn my whole life around. In a way I want to stay in uni forever, I can't imagine how all these people in the world are just being adults every day, it all sounds very uncertain.

It is very uncertain and the weight of expectations scares me

it's a little scary, but i'm also a little scared of everything so. it's kind of exciting to wonder about what will happen! i'm a firm believer in butterfly effect and multiverse theory, so i'm both excited and nervous to see what will happen that will change me into the person i'll be. i'm also a believer that everything is context for everything-- you are connected to every single thing on the planet, every string of time and fate, and i believe that the nonhuman others are tied to these strings, and i believe that other people are tied to the strings, and so we all touch each other in some way. i also believe in balance, so if one good thing happens, a bad thing will happen, and if a bad thing happens, a good thing will happen. really, i just believe. that has to count for something. in the dark times there will be singing, and all that. i just hope my future self knows i'm proud of her, whatever her choices are!

It's absolutely awful. I wish i just skipped to age 50

In this age, I don’t know how to plan for the future. The world might be uninhabitable in 40 years, so why am I working for this degree? It’s tough to think about growing up to inherit all of the problems our parents and ancestors created.

it’s so scary not because i’m growing up, it’s because it’s out of my control. i want to hold on to the memories of my childhood and teenage years forever, but i know it’s not possible and at some point i will have to face adulthood because time moves on…and well…i grow up. i’m not really sure what to do.

As long as I can remember I have always felt like I was floating; never really knowing what I wanted, but hoping that one day in the future, I would find the answer. I looked around at my classmates in high school and they all seemed to have a plan, or a general direction where their life was going to go. The adults in my life told me to get into college right away so I didn’t “waste any time”. I felt I needed to lie about my non-existent plan just to avoid judgment. I wanted to be skilled at something, find my passion, and find my purpose. I tried a number of things hoping to find what fit. Embroidery, piano, painting, yoga, jewelry making, gardening, photography, etc. When nothing came naturally to me, I thought about how absolutely lost I was always going to be. But when I look back now, there is absolutely no such thing as “waste of time”. Exploring and trying new things, not knowing all the answers, and learning about yourself and what you want is not a waste of time. Feeling lost is not a bad thing and it’s important to remember to appreciate every moment.

unsure. anxious. a little excited.

the pressure to live up to the glamorization of youth is exhausting. I am and will definitely be down to pull the same shenanigans past my 20s !! a lot of ppl around me, including myself, share the idea of working at a chill job w not too bad money (server + tips) and having time on the side to actually put effort into my passion of helping others rather than stressing myself over weeder prerequisite classes for competitive healthcare education programs

im terrified. i dont think i will be able to be responsible, smart, independent, "adult" enough. i fear ill become one of those people who live with their parents when theyre 40. this is only worstened by the fact i would like to become a primary school teacher, which is a job that doesnt make a lot of money. i fear failure. i never thought id make it to this point in life, i thought id be dead by 12, i never planned to go this far, for my life to last this long. adulthood was not in my plans.

The thought is terrifying. I'm in the stage of growing up, it's nothing about growing up itself but the experiences I believe come with it. To leave the dependent and privileged life I've lived in the comfort of my parents home and to have real life experiences with out them (it's exciting and scary at the same time). It gets a bit difficult to express with it comes my relationships with people and my education. I am still figuring out what I want to do in the future, and I feel like there is barely time left for me to make a choice because I don't have any other alternative to go for. I have lost friendships over the last 5 years more rapidly than I have in 17 years of existence. It is perhaps my insecurity, the danger of travelling alone, the craving for social acceptance, the safety, living alone, and the danger of danger catching up to me in anyway (physical, mental, psychological). I barely have education enough on how to deal with real world problems - sex education, taxes, money, etc. The things that you will require when you step out. It makes me believe that I am open to experiences, because that is what is required for me, but the thought of it is terrifying at the same time.

i honestly never thought i would get this far. i’m about to start driving & applying for colleges and i feel lost. i really mourn the childhood i didn’t get to have but i’m a little glad i’m still here because one day i’ll be the person i’m supposed to be. i’m just not yet, and that’s ok.

horrible but also good. i want to grow up in the sense that ill be able to make decisions for myself but the thought of college and a nine to five job makes me want to die

absolutely terrifying and i really do not want to do it

I just turned 18 maybe three months ago, and to be honest, I'm completely lost. when I was in 6th grade I developed ptsd, then borderline by 8th grade, and I never thought I'd make it past the summer I graduated. somehow I did, and I've been playing catch up with the rest of my peers. I feel like a failure already, and my life has barely begun.

I missed all of those typical teenager milestones because of my mental illnesses, and the future unfortunately will just be me trying to finally complete those things. today I got my learner's permit. I've never been on a plane, and I want to take a trip in may. I've never had an actual job with an actual paycheck before, and I'm hoping I can do that in january. I want to get a tattoo, maybe for my 19th birthday. unfortunately, things will just keep going at this snail's pace.

I want to have hope for the future. I might just be a little bright-eyed because I've never had to pay a bill before, but I feel like the future should be full of love and light if I choose to make it that way. I want to believe that people don't choose to live for 80 years if it isn't worth it, and I just hope I can find a way to make it enjoyable instead of just bearable.