WHY does everything happen at once? Ask any teenager and they’ll tell you: yes, everything happens at once.
Assignments, exams, getting the flu, sporting finals, music lessons, birthdays, driving tests, formals, I could go on.
There’s a species of Year 12 students who, each year around late August, travel at warp speed simply to get everything done on time.
The rest go into hiding as a coping mechanism – if no one can find them, then they actually have a chance of completing everything they need to.
When I was 17, I was a bit of both. If I wasn’t invisible, I was a blur. Mum and Dad probably forgot what I looked like.
I thought when I started uni, things would be different. I would be an older, smarter, mature version of myself. Therefore life would be easier.
Feel free to laugh at me at this point – I do.
Five years later and everything still happens at once. Starting a new job, finishing your uni assignment, that concert you bought tickets for, getting the flu, buying a new car, birthdays, moving out.
Alright, there are some similarities between these issues and the teenage ones, but this time around, they feel different. They feel bigger.
I realised this recently while catching up with my friends. It was a typical night at my mate Kelly’s house. Everyone was there.
We have all been friends since high school and it is incredible how little things have changed over the years.
I arrived first, giving Kelly and I time to laugh about the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy and get dinner ready.
Slowly everyone else started arriving, and before long, we were all sitting around Kelly’s big wooden table on her back patio, laughing at each other, arguing about contestants on The Block and catching up on all our latest concerns.
It was about here I noticed that our get-togethers “have” changed since high school.
We were now talking about things like saving for houses, travelling overseas, the price of rent, PhDs, and full-time work.
Shockingly, we had grown up. Maybe not completely – I’ll be the first to admit we’re not fully mature yet.
But somehow, somewhere along the way, we became young adults.
I remember chatting with Dave and Ollie once after a retreat, about if we had the chance to be a certain age again, just for one day, what age would we choose?
Not surprisingly, our answers varied. Ollie wanted to be 21 again; still in uni and only really worrying about when he was next seeing his friends.
Dave wanted to be the age he was right at that moment; having just started a family and a new business.
Me? I wanted to be eight years old. Or nine, I’m not picky.
“Because you don’t have to worry about anything.” I justified. “You go to school, you see your friends, you come home, you play with your toys, watch a bit of TV, your Mum makes you dinner and you go to bed. That’s your life.”
Nothing to worry about. I’m starting to think this is where my “young adultness” has emerged from.
It’s nothing to do with age, it’s about my level of worry.
I recently started a new job with a local TV network. It’s my first full-time job. I have a salary. I have a superannuation fund.
Suddenly, I need to start thinking seriously about my savings and how to spend properly. There’s a fair amount of worry in that.
Now, the station is situated at Mt Coot-tha and, considering I still go to uni at Kelvin Grove, I’ve made plans to move out to be closer to the city.
I’m suddenly talking about rent and bills and buying furniture. Again, the level of worry in that is up there.
And yes, like anyone else, I’ve got however many other things currently going on that also contribute to my worry-levels.
My prayers lately have been about asking for strength and resilience; a mind free from stress to be able to concentrate, and achieve everything I need to.
But when it comes down to it, I am a young adult and I will always have something to worry over – it’s whether I choose to let it get to me or not.
So maybe my prayers from now on need to be about thanking God for those worry-free moments in my daily life. Those – albeit rare – moments of clarity and peace.
And, you know, if you can squeeze it in, God, an eighth day in the week to get everything done wouldn’t go astray either.
You can follow Kiri on Twitter @KiriGroeneveld
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