I am fairly sure that I am having my midlife crisis at the age of 17.

Yes, I understand that I am still in high school, but that’s just the problem because in a relatively short period of time, I won’t be. In ten months, I will have graduated, and in thirteen, I will be living on my own. I can’t even open the child-proof vitamin jars and people expect me to effectively budget and do my own laundry? This is all too much. I don’t want to grow up.

Now would be a perfect time for Peter Pan to sweep in through my window and take me away to Neverland, but, alas, he has not yet arrived, and I am sad to say that I think he will be a no-show. It’s almost as disappointing as not getting my Hogwarts letter, but I digress.

 The scariest part of this senior year business is that it snuck up on me. When I was a freshman, I remember looking at the upperclassmen and thinking that they were so old. Seventeen was a big number, but now, three short years later, here I am. Although I now have my licence and can register to vote this coming May, I still feel like a little kid, and judging by how excited I got going through the car wash the other day, I’m fairly sure I could pass for a seven-year-old if I tried.

 I still live stream That’s So Raven, separate the marshmallows from the cereal in my Lucky Charms, wait hours for Dumbo, and run through the sprinklers on hot summer days, so how it is possible that this time next year I will be in a different city, possibly in a different state, starting a brand new chapter of my life?

 It feels like a dream. Except it’s not.

 Don’t get me wrong, I am excited to go to college. To finally be able to take classes I want and have some independence will be fantastic, I just don’t feel ready yet. While I have seen many colleges, I couldn’t picture myself at any of them because everyone else on my tour seemed so much older than I was. There were too many big buildings and way too many overly enthusiastic tour guides. It just didn’t feel right.

 Unfortunately, I don’t think I can deny it much longer. In a few months I will have to make a decision that affects the rest of my life. No pressure or anything,right? But once again I think I am getting ahead of myself. After all, I am only four weeks into my senior year and high school isn’t over yet. I still have plenty of time to let my mom do the dishes and read my sister’s diary. I cannot cross the college bridge before I get there, so I guess I should probably just have fun.

 So to all you freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, enjoy high school while it lasts, because whether you believe it or not, it goes by in the blink of an eye and before you know it, you will be an unstable not-so-seventeen-year-old just like me.