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Eighteen

As my '18' balloons slowly wilt closer and closer to the ground and I ruefully sip my fresh orange juice and promise my body that tomorrow will be without alcoholic beverage it is finally dawning on me that I'm all adult and stuff.

I realise that the previous end to that sentence indicates otherwise but yes, I am a legal adult. I can vote and I can buy alcohol and I can finally socialise with friends on an evening without fearing for me life- I mean fearing getting kicked out. I guess I somehow thought that a miraculous thing would happen upon me turning eighteen... I'd be able to cope with things better and I'd not be scared witless about working full time for two weeks and I'd basically conquer the world.

I do feel more grown up. I have met up with a friend in a pub and discussed literature and people and to top it all off I've worked my first slightly hungover shift very competently. All in all, I do feel more ready to conquer the world. Alas there is the whole 'change' thing going on at the moment and that is entirely crap but wonderful at the same time. There are people I'm going to be saying goodbye to that I don't want to say goodbye to and my mind, being the complete puzzle that it is, is going a bit mental with it all but a lovely friend reminded me gingerly that it is not the end of relationships. Moving across the country does not mean it's the end of a friendship, just as swapping an seven for an eight on your age doesn't automatically make you world-conqueror-ready.

These past two years I've started drinking a hell of a lot more coffee (I blame Michael and Gilmore Girls entirely for that one), I've changed what I read and fallen in love with studying English Literature, I've been enticed by philosophers and writers that I couldn't have dreamed of even going near, I've learnt to appreciate friends more and I'm currently trying to work out how I work as a person. It's sound entirely and utterly and comepletely cliche and I feel stupid saying all of that but it's mind blowing how much has changed these past two years but yet how little.

Time is something we apply to things, it's part of being human - recording and accounting for time. Yet it's so wibbly-wobbly that we cannot really make sense of it. Changing the number which you call your age doesn't change much, just like time moving on doesn't effect relationships and people that much and by realising that things can stay the same and change at the same time we, weirdly, can realise that things can work out okay.

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