O1.

 I'm not the best at goodbyes. Especially not when I'm trying to bid farewell to something that has been ever-present, ever-frustrating for more than half of my life. But once one is through, done, forever - does one really know what to feel, how to feel, when they watch what they once wished to see go so badly finally recede into the distance? What thoughts should run through their mind as the thorn in their side, unplucked, fades as the past envelops it like a mist?

I thought I should be wildly euphoric when I was told I could leave; but walking like an undead thing to the door and turning the handle, I could only think about the numerous mistakes and stumbling and good lord, the disastrous moments of fear. And then, to my own horror: "I wish I could redo everything to make it better." What! Redo? Just for the sake of a better chance at what I wanted? The heck? I was done! D-o-n-e, done.

Point number two - saying goodbye to something you have hated for so long is hard when you actually really, really wanted… wanted - well, to be good. Good at it.

The end has not been massive fistbumps and victory dances and celebratory desserts like I had always thought it should be, all these years. It's an anticlimax, to be honest. But isn't that life? Life, unpredictable and forever changing, evolving, never turning out the way one thinks it would? There're no shouts of congratulations, no thumps on the back and promises of expensive rewards for "making it through all the way"… but there's a quiet triumph in the stillness of each morning now, and every time I make myself a slave out of habit, my soul unravels and calms itself in the realization that it's all over.

All over.

O2.

It's funny how we're kids, being seven would be the ultimate thing when we're six; and then, as eleven year olds we'd set our sights on twelve; and what's the point of being fifteen when sixteen is so near? I was one of the kids who just could not grow up fast enough… but all of that came to a screeching halt at sixteen. Suddenly, seventeen did not look as desirable as every age before it, and though it took me awhile to understand why, the crux of the matter was that seventeen was the beginning of older teenagehood.

Seventeen was a step into young adulthood.

And then I realized that all the years I had spent wishing my childhood away were the years that I now desperately wanted back, now that seventeen was looming upon me. Peter Pan was not my favourite Disney show as a child for nothing. It goes to show that the things and beliefs and universal truths we're fed as young and impressionable and innocent beings etch themselves deeply in our souls and retain life within us long after we've supposedly "grown out" of it. I did not want to grow up. It may sound childish and silly and a dream that I should've outgrown many years ago, but if you feel this way then you most likely do not understand the meaning of nostalgia. Its sufferers can never imagine days more beautiful than the sunlit ones they left behind - some of which they left behind too soon. And still, time stops for no one.

Somehow, though, I managed being seventeen. But I just could not come to terms with the thought of eighteen - closer and closer to twenty. It's a helpless feeling, like the quote in The Great Gatsby describes:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. " 

My perspective was changed quietly and somewhat gravely just yesterday, however, when I was at a bookstore watching excited and giggly teenagers no older than sixteen clutch The Hunger Games in their hands and browse through chick-lits with overdone dramatic and gleeful expressions on their faces. Don't misunderstand me - just because I dislike frivolity, that does not mean that I dislike frivolous people. They are only human, only young. They will learn, and beneath their "Bitch, please" demeanours, they nurse tender, fragile hearts. I would hurt and damage them by hating them - and because of that, I… well. I don't. But it's the frivolity I can't stand.

As I watched them, I felt a sudden warm relief for this inevitable week, this inevitable 9th, because I could detach myself from the gigglesome, fangirl stereotype of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen; I would not feel the frustration I always did watching them, because come the 9th, we would be classified differently. The irritation would subside to a mere twang of unsettledness, a storm cloud watched from a distance rather than thundering above my head. If there is one thing I cannot stand to be labeled, it is the typical label that would fit the typical fifteen/sixteen/seventeen year old. And come the 9th, I will be none of those ages - and perhaps people will start taking me a little more seriously, to dig deeper and find that I have the conversation to match theirs. All of a sudden - I am thankful for eighteen, and finally thankful to grow up and accept my place as a young adult. Yes, I read Harry Potter and The Hunger Games and Percy Jackson, and yes, I sometimes even write fanfiction - but I am an eighteen year old who does these things, not a fifteen year old. Can you understand? Can you see the difference?

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Speaking of books - I would really like to post in-depth reviews on each Harry Potter book (all of which I loved and enjoyed immensely) as well as the thoughts provoked by The Hunger Games and maybe even Percy Jackson. Don't worry, no bashing here - I love them all. So I suppose... look out for that.

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Weekend Thoughts may be a weekly segment. It may not be. We'll see. All photos are taken by me on my iTouch using the Hipstamatic app - I thought variance between the SLR and the lo-fi would be a beautiful thing.