Last Day of 'Childhood'

So tommorow I turn 'the big 1-8'
Cliche yes, but this really was the last day I could call myself a kid...apparently it's 'all-grown-up' from now on.
It wasn't the best day (if you read my last post you probably get why).
But I did get some time with some of my best friends...it was good to see them.
I got some early birthday presents and warm words of encouagement.
My parents anticipating the day with a sense of fear and excitement.
To me in some ways, it's just another day, nothing special is gonna happen tomorrow....is it?
What's the big deal anyway....

I'm sure 18 has its perks but it's also the end to all the things that as kids you're entitled to:

• free travel on london buses ---- I have to start paying now? I haven't paid for a bus in my hometown for four/five years! Guess this means I'm walking home - sun, rain, snow or hurricane...it's my good ol' feet for me now.
• no taxes ---- I actually have to pay tax now...ergh...very sad times
• teen cinema tickets --- well actually I think I still get this, so it's all good.

Not being a student anymore means I am kind of like an unemployed youth that you hear about...the kind the government are trying to get out of their houses and into work....a place or category I hoped/thought I would never be in.

But nonetheless turning eigheteen...this year looks set to be one of the most important in my life...not because I can 'do whatever i like' (which if you're asian you'd totally undestand that this privelege comes with moving out...which comes with marriage)  , it's not the fact I can get into a club or drink legally....none of that matters...this year...it's make-or-break.

Turning 18 will hopefully bring some (some I say) of that freedom with it?
The approval of the adult world?
Someone who is already 18...tell me, is it all I hope it's gonna be?
Does life have the clarity I seek? 
Does the world sit into place for you?

I need a new perspective.

My eyes grow tired of the view from here.

The long winding tunnel 

And the ever receeding light,

Moving farther rather than

Closer, like it is avoiding me

Deliberately.

Who can make light out of this dark?

Is it a journey? Or

Something that comes with age?

I know one thing;

If I know anything at all

About this world...

This world makes

No sense.

A stranger in my own 'home'

Call me dramatic or whatever, but today I realised one thing: Seven years of your life can count for nothing.
Seven years of my life, nearly 8200 hours, 492000 minutes, 29520000 seconds of my life spent under one roof...or should I say a conglomerate of roofs that form what was known as my school.

The place where which for seven years I spent at least 50% of my life (as sad as that seems, perhaps even more to be honest).

Now I'm the kind of person who loves school. Literally I loved school. It may have been tough and such a pain some days you just wanted to fake being sick, but the rest of the time, it was like a second 'home' - a place to live, learn, make friends, create your ideas about the world.

And I was sad to leave. Sad when in the summer, we had to say goodbye to the school and to the past in which I both reminisced and yet wanted to move forward from.

Well as fate would have it, I'm back.
I have to walk those halls again. Not as a student, but as an OG (Old Girl)....one problem....for me to actually walk those halls again I might need to actually get past the front lobby.

Spent an hour and a half...or maybe more sitting quietly and patiently for someone to get me or let me in, but no. No one came. No one bothered at all. I was branded 'the problem in the foyer'; Their words not mine, though I doubt 'they' thought I could hear them.

So yes, after spending a some much time at a place which I thought I knew, it turns out I know nothing at all, because the place I visited was no 'home' of mine. No memory of me exists there and now doubt they ever will.
In fact I am not even a stranger....strangers were treated with kindness and respect as they arrived...I was treated like a piece of tossed out garbage on the street, someone hoping that another would take care of it if they ignored it for long enough.

This from a place which prides itself on steadfast ties with alumni?

Well I guess that's a lesson learned...loyalty is dead.

Observational II

'The Person Who Never Made Any Mistakes, Never Made Anything'

I'm only just starting to realise the full implications of this...I guess we all make mistakes, big and small and I've made tonnes, and maybe I'm making one right now....but at least it's mine...no one else can be held responsible, because in the end, it's my life and I'm the one who's living it...so even if this year is going to be tough, maybe make me realise my own mistakes and weaknesses....at least I know it was my choice and as another wise poet once said...

'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.'