Adolescence is the real thing

Some days it just seems like the stress of everyday life is crushing me under its immense, solid weight. To the point where I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't think of doing anything except pulling the covers over my head and willing myself shrink smaller and smaller until I turn into nothing.

People say that we as young, simple minded, adolescents couldn't understand real stress until we have ventured away from the nest. Until we have experienced this thing called "life" or the "real world".

Well, what am I living right now if it isn't "life" or the "real world"? Is this mere practice? Is it like a pretest--you get to compare your initial results at the end? No, I think what I am living, breathing, and occasionally dreading everyday is "real life".  

Saying that we have not yet experienced the "real world" is insinuating that what we do now does not matter. That it doesn't matter if we do drugs, slack off, or break the law at this age because it doesn't even count and isn't "real". Yet, in the same breath, our elders are telling us that we already need to be thinking about college, what we want to do with our lives, constantly preparing us for our futures, constantly telling us that what we do now, as high schoolers, will directly effect us 20 years from now.

Yes, I am a sixteen year old girl. I can't drive, I don't have a job, I have never had to pay rent or take care of a child.

But, I have had to take an entire day off of school so I could finish 3 different projects for only one class. I have had a stay after school until 6:00 everyday for a month in order to prepare for a stage production and then go home and do 3 hours of homework. I have had do pull up a Geometry grade from a D to a B in only two weeks.

I am only sixteen. I am not a grown woman. I am not a child. But I have the same emotions as a child, as an adult. We all feel fear, happiness, stress, anxiety, love...maybe not the same kind. Maybe for completely different reasons. I may not be stressed about paying my mortgage, but my parents aren't exactly stressed about English finals.

What am I trying to say? I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just saying that I'm tired of being written off as overdramatic. I think all  teenagers are. We're tired of being told that we don't know or that we couldn't possibly relate. Tired of the hypocritical nonsense about "life" and the "real world" being shoved down our throats every single day of our lives.

Maybe we just need someone to listen to us, instead of writing us off.