𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬: “At Eighteen” by Lara Marie S. De Leon

Published by: Aprilyn Sado

Date Published: October 8, 2024

Time Published: 7:23 AM

Category: Prose

Theme: The excruciating feeling of time slipping through our fingers, unnoticed.

Everywhere I go, in every minute of every day, there’s always this sound of a clock in the back of my mind, marking every second I let pass.

“Tick, tick…”

Each tick ridicules every choice I take and torments every decision I make. As if to mock my every move, it echoes louder and louder as I inch closer to eighteen.

“Boom!”

There it is—the very moment I dread, the moment I no longer can be seen as exceptional. At eighteen, I’ll just be another young adult. No longer a prodigy, no longer special.

The ingénue falls apart, and the world stops caring about potential. Anything I can do can be done by any other eighteen-year-olds.

As I sit in crushing silence, contemplating my unforeseen future, Peter Pan comes to my mind. That eternal boy who refused to grow up, and I wonder: which way is to Never Land? Where is that magical land where time remains indefinable, where the torture of growing up can be escaped, where is that place where the burden of expectations doesn’t weight heavily on my back?

I’m only fifteen, but the number feels so heavy. Three years until eighteen and what have I accomplished? What will I have to show for myself when the clock strikes?

I can’t help but compare myself to the giants of history. Mozart composed his first piece of music when he was five. At five, I was just learning my ABCs and fumbling through basic math. By thirteen, Picasso was said to have out mastered his father who was a skilled art teacher. Thirteen! At thirteen, he had already mastered what most would spend a lifetime merely to comprehend. What was I doing at thirteen? I was sobbing over algebra and polynomials, overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar concepts I couldn’t yet understand.

Now, at fifteen, I sit here, locked in a staring contest with my laptop screen, paralyzed by the suffocating feeling that time is rapidly slipping through my fingers. It’s as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, watching the years race by below me—each one a reminder that my youth is finite, and I am at a complete loss as to how to make them slow down.

How do I seize control of time when it’s something no man can master?

I attempt to capture it all in writing, but the words feel so empty. Too fragile to capture the enormity of the fear that grips me down. The fear of never being enough. Fear of not proving what I’m capable of before the world decides I’m no longer extraordinary.

Should I compromise? Perhaps I should just accept that I’m not destined to leave a legacy the way Mozart and Picasso did. Maybe I’m not fit to be remembered.

Or do I persevere? Keep pushing, keep striving. Even with the realization that writing may not be my true calling. Is this really where I’m meant to make my mark? Or am I just merely making a fool of myself, relentlessly chasing after a dream that may not even be mine to claim?

I still haven’t found the answers. All I have is the incessant ticking of the clock, constant and unyielding, reminding me that my time is wasting away.