turning eighteen

Two and a half months ago, I turned eighteen. Not only that, but the day before my birthday I had my graduation and my prom. It was a pretty busy weekend. Most of all, all those important life events were crammed into a span of maybe 36 hours. I was scared of all of them; I'm not too happy with my final grade, I was afraid I'd trip in my heels and fall down the stairs to the stage at my graduation, I was scared of that huge part of my life ending, I was scared of what's coming next. Prom was a similar issue: I'm not too fond of huge crowds and loud music and many people crammed into a small space. I wasn't keen on spending six+ hours in the company of people I didn't necessarily enjoy spending day after day in class with. And then midnight. The greatest horror of them all: my eighteenth birthday. The dreaded number.  The thing I have been most afraid of the past years.

I started crying the second my best friend hugged me and told me how much she loved me. I cried even more when my boyfriend started wiping the tears from my cheeks and kissing my face, and I couldn't stop when my friends lined up to say their lines and wish me a million things for my birthday.

It was all just a bit much, I think. The uncertainties of the months to come, the fear that I wouldn't be able to study something that really interested me and just becoming another empty shell, doing things I didn't enjoy in a place I didn't like, feeling like a waste of space and energy.

Now I know I will be able to study what I want to, but that fear remains: what now? What if the thing I always dreamed of will be just another disappointment, what if that's not what I'm supposed to do, what if I never find that thing?

The thought of now legally being an adult scares  me more than anything else. I'm responsible for myself now. I'm supposed to be able to take care of myself, and I'm afraid I don't know how. 

I'm currently in the progress of finding an apartment in the city I'll move to in autumn, and it's way more difficult than I imagined. I'm afraid I won't be able to find a place in time, I'm afraid I will miss appointments and lectures and deadlines if I'm supposed to remember all of it myself, if I alone am responsible for the work I do and how it turns out. I'm so afraid of failing, is what this is. The old, comfortable monster underneath my bed, mocking me and all my efforts. What will happen when I'm the one who has to make it go away?