The Inevitable...

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. 

- Garth Brooks 

All I smell is rubber and the sounds coming from the machines in the room are freaking me out. We've been waiting for what seems like 3 hrs now and we have yet to see a doctor. My dads laying on the bed with a gown on that makes him look like a little old man and his eyes are glassed over.. Looks like he's about to cry.

I haven't been to a hospital since I was 18 and I had my tonsils removed which was by far the most excruciating surgery of my life. I'm actually quite afraid of hospitals.. It's a place where so many lives come into the world, as well as leave. But I'm sitting here.. on this flimsy chair.. pretending to be occupied with my phone as the nurse draws blood from the guy on the bed across from us.

I think as children we never imagine our lives without our parents.. It's like they are indestructible. Then the second one of them gets sick it's like a complete low blow out of no where and we don't know what to do or how to feel. It was always them telling us what we should do to stay safe and healthy growing up, but now as i have become my own adult.. I see myself looking out for my parents health and giving them my opinion on their life decisions.

Mom.. Put on the sunscreen..
Dad.. Did you take your medicine ?

If you think about it.. we owe them as much time as they need since they cared for us for numerous years of our lives it's the least we can do in return.

It's just scary which is what I was trying to get at with all of this.. Scary when people you love are in pain and you don't know what is going to happen next. You know, I wish life was like one of those books where you can choose your own ending.. Get a chance to see both conclusions of how the story can go and then you can make the final decision.

But that's not how life goes. You never know what is going to happen next. You just have to be strong and hope that it all works out in your favor.

To Grow Up..

"happiness comes with the capacity
to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to
think freely, to risk life, to be needed."

    In exactly 54 days... I will be turning 21 years old. A day I have been waiting for since I first learned what alcohol and bars were.. yet the excitement I felt up to this point has begun to be taken over by an actual knot in my stomach. When did I grow up?

       At work the other day, my friend Nicole and I were discussing how amazing it is that we are soon going to be legally aloud into bars, and it sort of hit us as a shock.. 21. The thought that we would never be kids again sent an uncomfortable chill throughout our bodies. Turning 18.. 19.. even 20 are just less intimidating ages.. but 21.

     As I was laying in my bed this morning, I replayed all of my birthdays since the age of 16, and honestly I cant believe it's been 5 years since my sweet 16, seems like it was just yesterday. It's like our whole youth we always want to be one year older.. one step closer in life to where we want to be.. it's never good enough.. until you turn 21.. now I wish I could go back a year every birthday. 

    I get so emotional when I think about never being a teenager again. I mean, I've had the responsibilities of an adult for a very long time, but just the fact of telling others around me that I'm an adult.. and actually being recognized as one actually creeps me out. Like this is it.. this is the prime of my life.. I always told myself as a teenager that I would be doing so many things by the time I turned 21, and here I am and I definitely have a lot of expectations to live up to. 

    I guess it doesn't make sense to those who are still so young and naive, but hopefully, those who are at that point or way beyond it can relate to me in the fear of growing old.. of never being a kid again.