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Dear Diary,

Growing up is a contradicting experience.
When you’re a young adult, 
say 18-21,
you feel grown,
you feel that your life belongs
 to you,
that you don’t need the bigger adults guidance.
Sure,
what do people who are 2 generations above
 know what life is like for 21s’ these days.
Except,
your life isn’t your own.
You’re in uni,
then placement,
then uni and work,
which used to be placement,
 but now it’s grown-up work,
which somehow makes you feel
less adult.
You focus on finishing uni,
because then your job,
that only exists if you pass your degree,
will be yours
and then your life
will be your own.
Until there isn’t a risk 
of your things,
your choices,
being taken away from you.

Throughout that time,
you try to find the balance
between living and surviving,
of control,
 but also
seeing how things go.

So you focus
on 5 years.
5 years of
 studying,
working,
not saving,
(because we can’t save),
of living
(but not thriving).
Until one day,
a year on
from when that 5th year ended,
you realise
 you have
no control,
no balance,
no living
and even surviving became,
 hard.
You thought
at 25,
you’re adult enough.
Enough for what exactly?
We aren’t sure,
just that we should know.
Know everything.
You realise
you’re not living your life,
but someone else’s.
Someone you love
but you forgot,
somewhere along the way,
to love you.
But you can’t love you
when you don’t even
feel like you.
Sometimes,
you catch yourself
longing
for those times
when you were just surviving
at 23,
but that surviving
feels a lot more like living
compared to
whatever this hollowness is now.
23 year old you
felt more adult
than 25 year old you.
25 year old you
is sad,
and wants to go home.
Not this house,
but home.
Home
were 19 year old you 
left for uni,
home
where 16 year old you
fantasised about leaving.
You can’t help
but wonder,
what do those version of you
think now?
Do they look at you
and think
“what a waste,
a disappointment,
selfish person.
Where did your drive go?”

But that’s the thing,
your drive
is flickering,
like an only ember,
flaring
for that little bit of oxygen.
Home.

Home 
Is the oxygen
I’ve been starved of.
I am still here.
I am not dead.
I am surviving
and I want to live.
And maybe someday
I’ll even thrive.
Maybe I don’t feel adult,
or maybe
I’ve been adult too early.
But maybe
when I get home,
I can just be,
me.