I was nowhere near 13 when I had my first misconception of life as a teenager. “Adults” used to tell me that it would be a time of freedom and laxity, a time to move with the assurance that one can blame anything on adulthood not yet making its arrival at one’s station. I was made to picture a time when selfishness, even stupidity, would be understandable. Imagine my excitement then.
I was 14 when I had my first threat of suspension from my high school. Unfortunately, I can no longer recall what it was I had done because I was in much mischief then, and everything has become a blur. But I do remember the color of the walls of the Prefect of Discipline’s office, the small details of the room, from the pictures, the pens, to the pile of permits and violation slips on his desk. Yet that was no surprise for anyone who had paid him weekly visits.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t the only one who went through this hell. It was a school where chewing gum in class, or not segregating one’s trash, equals a penalty.
So much for freedom and laxity.
I had no room for mistakes. Back then I got reprimanded for talking too loudly because “girls” are not supposed to do so. When I had a headache I wasn’t allowed to go home right away because I needed a signature from a person of authority—and apparently my pain had to wait because his signature required so much toil that he needed to finish his lunch first.
I used to respect the rules and even admired those who followed them, but when I saw teachers chewing gum in the hallways, and the janitors emptying the contents of the “biodegradable” and “nonbiodegradable” bins into a single garbage bag, I just knew. I was 14 and I needed adulthood to pick up speed on its way toward me.
From my previous experiences, I knew I had to get into a university with a liberated way of thinking. I could never live with so many restrictions again. Luckily, fate had that door opened for me.
I was 17 when I had my first taste of real freedom—and I don’t think I had ever gone through a more challenging period in my life.
The dilemmas evolved from not getting to do what I wanted to not being able to differentiate what I wanted from what I got to do. The tasks were no more heavier than before, but their consequences surely were. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was in a time where every decision was a crucial building block to my future, and with a single block out of place, everything could fall to pieces within seconds.
The truth is, on a Friday night you could go home and go to bed early or have yourself completely wasted, and you could still wake up the next day confused and lost. You could spend your day doing every productive task that you could push yourself into or lie there and watch the ceiling for hours, and still not feel like you’re doing what you’re supposed to do by twilight. This is the truth about the transition. Adulthood is never really about freedom—that is its illusion. What it is really is self-realization through the most strenuous and tedious means. Imagine the disappointment of that nowhere-near-13-year-old me.
There is no perfect definition of adulthood. All I know for sure is that it proves no expectation, disappointing anyone who would claim to being prepared—and anyone who has gone through it would agree with me.
Janelle Marahay, 19, is a communication and media studies sophomore at the University of the Philippines Visayas in Miag-ao, Iloilo.