Turning 21; After the balloons and banter come the Big Life Questions
By Ellen Lundy
Nothing changed when I turned 21. I moved to Spain at 20. I finished my first year of university at 19. I received the right to vote at 18. I got my driving license at 17. And lockdown began at 16. 5 years and 5 birthdays filled with concrete, life altering events that marked the beginning of a change in direction. And yet, the day I turned 21, though I still lived in Spain as I had at 20, attended university as I had at 19, had the right to vote as I had at 18, drove as I had at 17 and had experienced a lockdown like I had at 16, I could not shake the feeling that something had shifted.
I spent the day with an uncomfortable weight. I found it difficult to verbalise what exactly I was feeling. I had a wonderful birthday; dinner with family, a trip to the spa with my mum and two wonderful parties. There was no limit to the love that I felt during that weekend.
And yet, I felt as though since midnight on my birthday, a new friend had come to visit. She joined me at every table, in every corner and every moment of silence. I could not escape her.
For I was her.
She was the future that was now so glaringly close; I was no longer a child. I felt as though the years between 18 and 21 were a trial run period for adulthood; I was now experiencing the life long subscription.
I find myself drifting off more often than before now; attempting to solve the puzzle that is the future. The issue is that I do not have all the pieces yet. I have no idea what my life will look like outside of university. And the thought terrifies me.
However, there is one thing that I have come to know about myself; that which terrifies me is often the making of me.
When I was sitting my GCSEs, I was terrified of exams. At the thought of failure. And, at that time, failure was getting anything less than the top grade. My fear paralysed me. I could not study or concentrate as I lay my life’s worth on a sheet of paper.
And yet, that future never came. Lockdown happened and my GCSEs were cancelled. I received predicted grades based on mocks. Mocks that, at the time, appeared to mean nothing, but ended up meaning everything. The future that I feared with such certainty had changed completely.
That is the fickle thing about the future; our fear of it can come from its certainty or uncertainty. We are certain that one day in the future we will experience loss; and so we fear the future. We are uncertain if we will ever find love; and so we fear the future. We are certain that we will have to form a career one day but are uncertain of what that will look like; and so we fear the future.
Through the years, I have learned to quiet that voice. For the future is coming. And you can either stand on the side of the train tracks, watching as your present becomes an unknown future, or you can ride the train and have some influence on the direction your life takes.
So, though I find myself slipping into old habits at times of fearing fear itself, I always remind myself of that girl. The girl who feared living so much that she forgot to do it. The girl who spent her life trying to control the uncontrollable. The girl who didn’t know herself and so feared what that meant for her future.
I remind myself that I have come so far. And so when I have slip-ups like I did on my 21st birthday; when the future feels like a sheer cliff rather than a climbable mountain, I take myself for a coffee with my 16 year-old-self who feared so much for a future that never came. And I tell myself, that if I can’t be brave for myself, I need to be brave for her. For she needs to know that it gets better.
And as we both look towards the third friend that has joined us at the table, the old me will glance toward the floor and pray that she walks away. But I will reach out my hand, look her in the eye and say, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I can’t wait to see what we make of life together.’
