Much Too Old

Anyone else feel we're too old? i dont mean the standard, 'you're too old to be doing that, so put that spraypaint away' old, i mean the 'oh dear, i have this and that and this too do, then i have to have this before 3 then....'old. The 'we have as many things to do as dad and are getting way too stressed to do things' old. Don't get me wrong, we have fun, no doubt about it. But at times i suddenly stop feeling 'young and sweet, only 17!(16)' and like an old woman whose had her run. sort of 'when will it all stop?' when it hasn't even begun, which is irritating in its own way.

Sometimes, I miss the problems I once considered Huge, and would gladly trade them in for what i'm going through now. know what i mean? It's like we're being tossed around by life, and someone up there's mocking us for complaining about our problems, by throwing us a whole new set of them, to make the old ones pale in comparison. I guess it's a part of growing up, but it's all so, well...bang! One year the only thing i'd have to worry about in the airport was not being able to find a good magazine at the duty free. Next year, a child 7 years younger than me is counting on me to keep him safe as we both travel alone to india- i would gladly sacrifice reading if it meant he wouldn't get an asthama attack, wouldn't get lost, kidnapped, abducted, anything. It's like being converted into a temporary mother, you suddenly dont exist, all you care about is making sure your child is fine. And at 14, you don't want to spend youre precious pre-flight time watching tv in the lounge because the child doesn't want to come to the duty free. I felt old, very tied down.
But thinking of what i said earlier about how our new problems are the suns rays to our old problems' ants. Sometimes our new problems are the same, technically, just on a different level. For example, having a crush on someone. Before it was a playful thing, and you could get over it. then suddenly you meet Someone and youre completely unprepared for the rush of emotions that have suddenly taken you over. It goes much deeper than your previous notion of 'like' and you can't do anything but wonder how things got this far. and you never really get over that (it becomes a problem, it was so minute before). or it's like this current time when Universities have to be applied to, final marks have to be simply fab thus entailing endless amounts of studying, not to mention assorted tests, being worried about submitting homework (remember homework?) on time is laughable compared to this Application Frenzy.
I also get this terrible feeling that i'm too old when i see lists regarding what i have to do. i suppose it should make me feel organised, but lists (this sort) has always seemed to be an 'old person' thing. we're not meant to have so many things to do that we need lists! we're not meant to have so many medicines for various ailments that are suddenly turning up. most under 20s i know are popping more pills than my grandad, the grandaddy of all meds. true, we are living in a different, more dangerous, faster paced time as opposed to the pollution freer times our parents lived in.....but does that mean we become their 40 yr old selves aged 16? do we need to take, to be told to take vitamins at specific intervals ( as determined by the lists) when we could just eat our greens rather than skip a meal to go for tuitions, or an enforced relaxing session or..........(n/a to nicole richie followers). i dont think so. neither do i think that this is what they mean by, 'youth is wasted on the young/comes and goes too soon'
as per natural progression, u look around you at all the things you'll be leaving behind in less than a year, and this wave of nostalgia englufs you, and you feel so incredibly old, but so unprepared. you dont have the answers to everything you thought you would. not even a quarter of everything. overwhelmed.
almost as if the 4 Non- Blondes was singing 'What's Up?' about you?

Then that 16 year old in me, so far supressed by the current mood, fights its way through, and yells, ' stop whining about yourself!! get off the comp, open ur bio book' (ok, bit of self gratification there, it's actually telling me to get off the comp, go 2 my room and dance to my mp3.....since i wldn't want to wake anyone up....hush you!)