A year later... or a bit more

Ok, it's not my birthday anymore, but I made myself a promise to write something for my birthday every year since my last year's post (yeah, the one in which I was complaining infinitely about having become 20 years old), so here I am. It took me a while to get myself to write this year's post, mainly because I was having a tough time with my "responsibilities" and... well I have a huge amount of excuses but I suppose it doesn't really matter.
This time, I tried to do a more objective and less reproachful analysis of what I've done with my life so far and, although the result wasn't much different from last year's one, I do think that I have attained lots of good things during this year past.
I do still feel quite lost, insecure and I still think that there are many things I need to figure out, but, I've learned a lot about myself this year. I finally learned how to leave some of my masks and poses aside when dealing with others; I understood that I am not that much more mature than other people of my age in some aspects (close relationships with people, for example) and (the best part), that being childish in those aspects is not wrong. It's not wrong simply because I don't have much experience at all there, so i dont really know how to behave.
I've always been kind of blunt and clumsy when dealing with people and letting them get inside my life has always been difficult. On the other hand, when they finally get inside, I tend to give everything I have to them and keep too little for myself. I finally understood what Felix told me about "giving so much that it is scary". Ironically enough, it was Taro the one that made me understand that... in a very painful way, i might say.
About that, If I had to choose 2 things that marked my 2008, one would be for sure the relationship with Taro. Yep, although i still think that he screwed up big time, and at the moment it seemed that my world was falling appart (check July's post) I have to thank him for what I learned with all that. Maybe it made me a bit cynical as well but it seems that you cannot really go around the world believing that people will actually correspond to what you expect from them (they don't really have to, anyway)
Luckily, and a bit surprisingly, it seems that I am not that weak at all. I could take back what i gave... and now I am keeping most of it for myself. This time im going one step at the time, and it seems to be working well so far, I don't suffer for every little thing that happens (or doesn't happen) as much as I did before... and this time i'm trying to actually comunicate and not just pretend i do.
This was a hard year to go through... but, this time i actually got something good out of it! ...
Guess i AM growing up :P

Why I didn't want to become 20

So the dreaded day has finally come. Today, or more exactly yesterday, I became 20 years old.
It may not seem so big of a deal to many people (in fact, most of my friends have told me that I have nothing to complain about, that I'm still very young, etcetera, etcetera) but, for me, this is one of the gratest shocks I've received in my entire life. It is still incredibly hard to think about myself as a 20-year-old woman (not a girl anymore, huh?), and to face that it is about time for me to take responsabilities for my own actions.

Why 20? What is it that makes it so different from any other birthday? Why don't I feel like celebrating it like every other year? Truth to say, I'm not sure. And, as silly as it may sound, I think it is just because of the 2 at the beginning of the number. Funny, isn't it? The way just a little change in the first number of my age can make my birthday less enjoyable, just because I'm feeling the weight of the responsability for my life on my shoulders, and it is a weight very different from what I thought it would be.

So, as a sensitive reader might have already noticed (not that i'm sure of having one), what I hate about becoming 20, is not being 20, nor getting older, no. What I hate about becoming 20 is what "being 20" symbolizes for me. I like being the youngest in every single social group I belong to; and I like being considered the "mature girl" I'm not, and I like acting as if there were no consequences to my actions. But I am not so sure that I like what I've made of my life so far. Yes, I AM very inmature, and I am kind of lazy, so it feels sometimes as if my life is what it is now just because I was too lazy to do something different of it. As if I'm just drifting along with the circumstances.

Everything seemed clearer when I was younger, when I was a kid. I know that we cannot possibly tell where we will be some years from now, and that things usually don't go as they were planned but, this is not what I imagined my life would be like when I became 20. Not at all. No purpose, no direction, no big achievements, no clear aspirations, no sense of responsability (no sense of direction either: I get lost as soon as I put one foot outside my neighborhood), it just doesn't seem right.

I know, I tend to judge and criticize myself too much. Can't help it, it comes with the package, I guess. And though I know it is kind of stupid and self-destructive, I can't help it, and I don't think I want to. When you lived trapped in some society filled with people unable (or unwilling) to speak about your faults, how are you supposed to improve yourself? How are you supposed to know what you should change or correct? As long as I don't find different answers for those 2 questions, I will continue struggling with my stupid and self-destructive way.

Anyway, I became 20. There's nothing I can do about it. So I'll just have to live with it, and be more prepared next time the first digit of my age increases. Which means a little bit more of work. We'll see how that goes.