I remember being little and playing with my sister. We would play house, school, and "teenagers". Teenagers was a game where we dressed up in high heels and basically acted like preps. We had our purses filled with monopoly money and fake credit cards, ready to buy everything in site. We had rich, cute boyfriends that gave us flowers and rings and did anything we wanted them to do.
We thought being a teenager was the most glamorous a person could be. Each time we agreed to play teenagers, we would automatically shout "I'm seventeen!". We always wanted to be seventeen. I don't know what it was about that age, but it seemed so old. It seemed like the greatest thing.
I remember thinking "I can't wait till I'm seventeen." I always thought being that old meant doing whatever I wanted, having whatever I wanted, and being "cool". I thought that once I was that age, life would be one big party. Ten years ago, at the age of seven, I looked at it as no rules, no bedtime, and no cleaning your room whenever my mom said.
Now, in less than one month, I will actually be seventeen. It's kind of hard to look back on myself at that age and see how eager I was to grow up to be this age. Sometimes I wish I was still that little girl fantasizing about the alluring age of seventeen.
Seventeen is obviously not as dazzling as I once believed. Seventeen means more like broke, busy, and boyfriendless. I must have been out of my mind to think that I'd be buying everything I wanted at the age of seventeen. I can hardly afford to buy everything I need, much less everything I want.
Seventeen does not mean partying all day long with a cute boyfriend who buys me roses and jewelry. Seventeen is much less of a party than seven was. Seventeen is homework, drama, and still not being "cool". Preparing for college, finding a job, keeping up with school, and trying to maintain time with friends and family is much harder than prancing around pretending to have an amazing life.
Seventeen seems to have even more rules than seven. Before it was simply; wash your face, say "please", eat your vegetables. Now it's no cell phones, get to class on time, do your homework, be home by eleven, make sure you tell me where you'll be, the list goes on and on. I used to wish for a day without a bedtime, now sometimes I wish I had one. Staying up till after midnight doing homework or reading just because you have to is stressful and never fun. And needless to say, I still have to clean my room whenever my mom says.
Being seventeen is great sometimes, but it's absolutely not what I expected. It does mean more freedom and sometimes more fun, and at least more money than I had when I was seven, but it's never what I imagined. Nothing is ever what you think it will be. Live for now, enjoy what you have, because it probably won't be getting any more glamorous any time soon.
