#ADULTING (Open Letter) -By Avantika Bhandari

#ADULTING

(Open Letter)

To 

My younger self,

Hope this letter finds you when you need it the most because I really think you're capable of misplacing it.

You've just turned eighteen and everyone around you thinks you're a weirdo and you're pretty chill with that. This kind of makes me admire you.

You're smiling, eating cake, answering calls, thanking people and eating more cake. That's my girl!

You're supposed to be feeling happy but instead, there's a heavy, sinking feeling in your chest.

Do you know what is next?

A wave of panic arising from thoughts like, '18 years and what have you done with your laugh' and 'will the child inside be able to withstand all the storms that will come its way' and a long list of your lucid nightmares.

You're out of breath so you scroll through your list of contacts and then stop thinking, 'It's about time to stop asking others to remind you how to inhale and exhale. Grow up you little constant cribber.'

The day melts away like a thin sheet of ice and you've literally cried for the most part of it because you think adulting is this Atlas-ish stuff where you carry a lot of weight on your shoulders, don't get to lean on someone else, don't get to be yourself.

As usual, you're just using only your last two brain cells and yet overthinking.

Stop.

Breathe.

Think, like a human and try to understand adulting isn't as ugly as you've painted it in your head. It really isn't random vortexes and double helixes and skulls and crossbones. 

It is also a rose tainted sky full of your dreams and a country road lined with serene citric trees and barbed wires and approaching dust storms.

It's a lot but it's not bad.

It definitely does not beat being given food by just shrieking and crying but it is still something.

So, wipe your tears and that teeny weeny amount of goo below your nose and dance a little, eat the cake and that's it.

You will be alright.

-By Avantika Bhandari