06 September, 2002 - 8:19 a.m.

so we've skipped merrily into spring already, and I've spent the past couple of days wondering where the rest of the year has gone. seriously .. it's like, four months until I turn twenty - and without sounding corny, it only feels like a little time ago I was planning for my eighteenth. now the prospect of leaving my teenhood behind and becoming a fully fledged adult with fully fledged adult responsibilities scares the living daylights out of me.

mind you, I know plenty of people who're in their mid-20's that still act as juvenile as the rest of us, so I guess nobody's really expecting much. but isn't that the weird thing, though? 20 years ago, people were married and settled with the beginnings of a family by the time they were twenty. being female, twenty-five, and unmarried led people to the conclusion that you were never going to amount to anything. these days it's common .. and though a relief in some ways to my young mind (I'm so not ready for such a huge committment) it also makes me wonder what the future holds in store for me.

I even got to thinking about children and stuff the other week. tres scary. and though it may seem extremely trivial, I was thinking about how much I wanted to be a young mother when I was 40, but not a young mother now. as in .. it would be nice to be only 20 years older than my kids, and that way maybe the whole generation gap between us wouldn't seem to be as difficult to overcome as it seems to be with other children and their parents. but I don't want to be twenty now, and laden down with prams and diapers and pacifiers and cribs.

would you listen to me .. only twenty and already worried about what forty is going to be like. unfortunately, that's just the way I am -- I look ahead and I wonder. I think about where I am now, and where I'll be in a year .. two .. three years time, and I worry. I paint myself bleak pictures for the future, and try to figure out what measures I can put into effect now so that I can avoid living a colorless life.

and maybe *that's* my biggest problem. I'm letting myself think old before I get old. and most people can (and will) tell you that there's no point in worrying about tomorrow. or perhaps more correctly, there's no point in worrying about a time and place that's five years down the road. I don't know if I believe in fate and destiny and a divine being enough that I can live life with the thought that it's all pre-destined. I do believe that I have the majority of say as to how it all pans out. but for now, while I'm still so young, and have so much time left ahead of me (I hope!) I'm going to conclude this entry with :

One of the most obvious facts about grownups, to a child, is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

- Randall Jarrell

.. I just don't want to spend all my time trying to imagine what being a grownup is like that I don't live my childhood, and thus end up having nothing to remember.