I’m sixteen.
I turned sixteen a week ago.
Sixteen, it’s kind of important. You’re getting to the end of your teenage years. You’re one year away from graduating. You’re probably starting to think about your future.
To start being independent.
I’ve looked at colleges. I’m not sure if I know any more or less after a million explanations, fees, plans and scholarships.
How many credits, how many scores, how many qualifications? I have many questions, and I’m not sure where to start.
It’s all too overwhelming.
Is it too late to say, ‘I drop chemistry’?
I’ve never really thought I’d get far for that subject, after all.
I have a dream.
I know what I might have to go through if I try to chase it.
My aunt told me I’d never make a living being a writer. I see where she’s coming from.
I don’t have a plan.
I haven’t even made a decision.
I’m procrastinating, I admit. Maybe too much for my own good.
I should start writing, the voice in the back of my head says. Start writing the book you’ve planned out for so long. What’s stopping you?
Fill up your portfolio. You have three years to do it.
It’s half a year already and there’s still a disappointingly small amount of my work on here. I’m not sure if I’m proud of it.
Everyone says I write well.
But nothing else besides that.
I’m not good enough yet, I rationalise. I need to improve more before I can start writing.
At least, that’s my excuse.
My best friend tells me to I should take the leap. I still haven’t.
My mother wants me to socialise more. Make more friends.
Especially at the temple.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to associate with that place. With those people.
With their perfect paragons and religious preaching.
It’s like a cult. I’m in a cult.
And as soon as I can move, I will.
Not even my mother can get me to go back.
This always leads me to think about life.
What do I want out of it?
My father just tells me to be happy.
My mother wants me to dedicate myself to religion, so I can break the cycle of reincarnation and finally go to heaven.
I think I won’t want to be part of a religion at all.
What happens after death?
I think about this quite a bit. It might drive me insane. To think I would grow up, lose the ones I love and finally die having lived an insignificant life?
That’s my biggest fear.
Well, besides aliens.
The ones with big heads and big black eyes especially.
I always think there’s one looking into my bedroom window. Sometimes it takes a while to sleep because of it.
My eyes like to play tricks on me, and so does my imagination,
I guess that’s the bad part about being able to imagine things.
Where am I going with this, you ask?
I’m just writing stuff as they go.
Do I know what I’m doing? No.
Will I ever know what I’m doing at all? Probably not.
I’m sixteen, and I still don’t have a clue.
And you’re just reading the ramblings of a sixteen year old.