[ WP ] You look out at the bright lights of the city and wonder how you ever grew up .

What is it about our generation that makes us so baffled by the passage of time? When someone says `` back in 2006'' and you think, *that was such a long time ago... but wait that's only ten years... but wait that's half my life time ago*... when the heck did I grow up? 
 
 I'm making all of these decisions, career choices, trying to figure out where I want to be and who I want to be and what I want to be for the *rest of my life*, I'm not ready for this. 
 
 The city lights on the horizon mock me, they twinkle at me, dazzling with their brightness and their promises. Is anyone ever really ready? 
 
 I'm so scared of getting stuck, being boring, not living life to the fullest, yet somehow I go through each day and feel like it's wasted; go to class, to work, do homework, study for midterms, maybe watch some Netflix, go to sleep. Wake up, repeat. Again, again, again. 
 
 There are little things that make me happy of course, watching the sunset like tonight, good books and good music, friends, but when the sky is dark and full of mysteries, all those fears bubble up to the surface again, swirling around in my head and making me feel like a child again. 
 
 But I'm an adult. A grown up. When the hell did this happen? 
 
 Knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them trying to make myself as small as possible, I look at the scattered beer cans around me and make a decision. 
 
 All of those things I've been thinking about for the last couple years that seemed ridiculous or out of reach: I'm going to do them. Start with something small, like getting one of those ear piercings that make you look like a pirate, or dying my hair a crazy color. And when I've built up enough courage, I might even drop this whole STEM career pressure bullshit and do something I love. Play my flute, back pack across Europe, write a novel. Because I can sit here in a pit of useless nostalgia wondering what happened to myself, and before I know it those twenty years I'm looking back on mournfully will be forty, sixty, and then nothingness. 
 
 Or I can do something about it. 
 
 Suddenly those lights look a little brighter, and for the first time in a long time, I smile.
