For me.. Well. It's hard to explain. And this isn't going to be some eloquently written speech that will garner some serious up votes, so I apologize in advance.
When I was around 15, I was "ahead", mentally, of my peers. ...ish. I was one of those "seen the worst parts of life young," kids. I thought I understood the workings of a relationship. I didn't really understand why my mom was so stressed out all the time. All she had to do was go to work and come home and feed me. The end.
Then I hit 17. Went through some more "worst parts of life" shit. Still thought I was pretty ahead of my peers. I didn't understand why my brother was so stressed out. All he had to do was go to work, do some college classes a few times a week, and he got to live in his own super-sick pad. He could do whatever he wanted, and like, what was better than that, right? I would totally work and go to class if I could just be an adult.
Then I hit 18. I was so sure that every one in the entire world was over exaggerating that I moved an hour away from home to go to school and "make it on my own". Because that was like, totally cool, right?
And then I hit 4 a.m. After six hours working at an adult club. Because 12 hours a week of college wasn't twelve hours. It was 25. Because college really wasn't high school. I really couldn't skirt by by using a little charisma and "I'm super sorry, I totally forgot to study! Won't happen again! :)"
And "just going to work" wasn't just going to work. It was another 25 hours of the week. It was doing something I never in my entire life saw myself doing, because I didn't realize that 25 hours of school required a full time job to pay for. So letting go of the morals I held my entire life meant I could afford another semester.
It wasn't a quick shift and then getting to have friends over to my "super-sick" pad. It was 25 hours of "I should be at study group. I'm going to pass with a C-." It was "if I go 10 over the speed limit, I'll get home 8 minutes faster, and I'll get 4 hours and 8 minutes of sleep instead of just 4."
And it wasn't a "super-sick" pad. It was a studio apartment that had my mattress on the floor and a three drawer white plastic bin for my clothes, because "being an adult" meant buying your own things. Being an "adult" meant "food for two weeks," or getting to turn the heat on an extra hour during the night, because being an "adult" meant bills.
I realized it didn't really matter how "ahead" I felt, in my head. I was a guppy in a lake of other guppies all pretending to be frogs. And every day feels like drowning. Because I wanted to be a frog, and I didn't even know what it meant to swim.
It's true. I really do love coming home to my apartment that I've busted my ass for. I really do love my mom saying she's proud of me. And i really do love discovering this giant lake of a world.
But every day I'm drowning. And if I had taken the time to see that everyone else was, too, maybe I wouldn't have been so eager to grow up.
But I'll never think anyone is just "exaggerated," again.