Once upon a time...

While rummaging through a variety of miscellaneous boxes the other day, I enjoyed a good laugh when I stumbled upon this little treasure.

After composing myself, I began to think about just how long ago that really was.To think, that i was 2 or 3 years old then, fourteen or fifteen years ago, stunned me. I can barely remember the first day of Freshman year, a year and a half ago. So to look at a picture taken that long ago, and then to take a look at where I am today, came as an unexpected surprise.

We're constantly told, "It'll be done before you know it" or "you're growing up so fast", or some combination of the two, and we disregard it completely. To us, time goes by so incredibly slowly, that to imagine ourselves even five years from now, seems virtually impossible. 

But if we look bad a few months, a few years ago, how quickly did that time go by? Wasn't it only yesterday we took our first steps onto our new high school campus', not knowing what to expect? And wasn't it just last week when we were still afraid of the other sex because they were gross? 

Five years I was getting prepared to enter middle school, and I was pretty sure I was the coolest thing to come. Five years from now, I'll be 21, in college, living life independently and as an adult. Five years ago I can remember like it was yesterday, but five years into the future, seems as unreal as possible. 

We hear from adults to make the most of our youth, don't take our teenage years for granted, seize all opportunities- but how many people can really say they do that? We wake up each morning, dreading school and the work ahead of us. We come home, procrastinating and wasting our time with modern technologies. And all the time in between we spend bitching about all that we have to go through and deal with. When will we wake up and realize how fast our youth years are moving without us realizing it?

Until recently, I was so ready to be an adult, I practically counted the days. Now I still am eager and excited for the many years to come when I'll be independent and an adult, but that's not for a few more years, so why not take advantage of my teenage ones? Taking every available opportunity, making the most of each day, and still striving to be successful during these years. I don't want to wish I had done more, participated more, experienced more, learned more in high school.

That's why regardless that I may not realize just how close adulthood may be, I've made the conscious effort to experience now. Today. Tomorrow. And my little-over-2-years left of high school. 

*So my topic/point sorta shifted halfway through, but if you look hard enough, you can make the connection :]