To my nine year old self

I should be studying. Truly I should. And it is exactly for that reason that I am making a blog post!

Where some people look at the past with nostalgia, I am constantly looking forward to – and subsequently, freaking out over – the future. I have always been like that. There was never a point in my childhood where I wasn’t thinking about a year from now, two years from now, ten years from now. Honestly, it wasn’t even a case of not having a good childhood. I enjoyed being a kid but I always wanted responsibility, and I always wanted to be independent.

I would plan my future every so often; what I wanted to so, where I wanted to live, the languages I wanted to learn…I was excited for the future.

Even now, I don’t yearn for the carefree years of childhood because, dammit, I want tomorrow. I always have. My eighth birthday passed, and I was already excited for my ninth.

Most importantly, I wanted to be a teenager. It was a magical world, filled with being taller, looking pretty like my mama, being in high school, doing cool subjects and giving scary exams. I looked forward to all of it. I think we all must have.

And now, at nearly seventeen, I can safely say that…well, being a teenager is okay, I guess. It’s fun. But all my dreams of being a basketball star are pretty much shot to nothingness.

I’m only 4’11, nine year old Neiha. Basketball is not my forte.

But for all my planning, who could have forseen my current ambitions?

I don’t want to be a cartoonist. I don’t want to be a teacher. I don’t even want to be a fashion designer.

I’m not tall, I don’t have flowing pink locks, I don’t wear cargo jeans and baseball tees.

I’m not spineless. I’m not without opinions. But I’m not the supremely confident person I thought I’d be. I don’t want to live in Mexico, or Japan, or even New York now.

You never grow up into what you planned on, and I guess ten years from now, I’ll be a different person again. But right now, I’m a short, girly, hat-and-nailpolish rockin’ IR-major to be and being a teenager is just a transition stage rather than a landmark.

What matters is company. Company can make or break any stage of your life. What matters is taking a breather every now and then and to stop evaluating your life constantly. It helps to look around and take in your immediate surroundings. That’s why everyone has a creative outlet, I think. Whether we’ll looking to the past, or fretting over our future, that outlet – be it sports, art, music, shopping or even blogging – ties us to the present.

So, nine year old Neiha, yeah, being a teenager is pretty awesome. But you move away from friends. And you gain new ones. And you’ll move away from them. And then gain new ones.

Life will move on whether you like it or not so when you’re planning each phase of your life, keep in mind that it will most likely not be according to plan.

Things suck and then you cry. But time heals everything. And time goes on.

(PS: I’m hearing from Princeton on the 29th. Help.)