18 is Awesomely Ordinary

Everyone plugs eighteen to being a promotion; its like the exclusive age of adolescence, a still youthful age with (almost) all the perks of being an adult. I thought it would be so great I started counting down to it a year ago on my dashboard. But I am also so sorry to say that it didn't start off with a bang and it certainly goes down to being one of the worst birthdays I think I might ever have in my entire life. Not my worst, because I'm sure my 15th definitely takes the cake for being the worst one.

So why is turning eighteen not such a big deal? For one, in Singapore, nobody gives a hoot that you are eighteen and this especially applies to all the controlling, manipulative parents/aunts/uncles/misc. relatives out there. Apparently, in our bloody country, turning eighteen is no more special than turning seventeen or twenty five. When you are unmarried, schooling and not financially autonomous, no one cares if you are eighteen or twenty five. You stay with your parents and because you live in land scarce Singapore, you cannot even move out into the country to build yourself a pathetic atap house to live in. And this predicament, basically translates to a life of semi- self-management and a whole lot of close, unwarranted supervision. They always say that you probably won't survive if you are out there alone, but did they ever consider that the lack of opportunity to do so is a causality and not simply a correlation?

And here's another reason: just because you are suddenly considered a year older today, your opinions did not matter more today than they did before. Lets hypothetically address this issue. When it is your birthday and all you want is to enjoy the cake-cutting/feigned merriment in the comfort of your own home and not have the entire restaurant look over when you are doing so, you ought to be allowed to do so. But no, just like before, your opinion probably did not matter more than convenience did. I think I can get used to this. People make decisions for you. These decisions to me are almost always disagreements. AND I think I might just live with it as being a way of life, it is either this, or me killing myself, I guess.

I don't know if my family knows this, but I HATE people making choices for me, or rather, pretend to care by asking and ignore whatever I say anyway. So way to go, family...because I'm sure I would only appreciate whatever freedom I have in the future and exercise it with restraint. I think I can finally rationalize why there are some individuals who go crazy and wild when they find themselves suddenly independent. I think its catharsis for those poor, repressed souls carved out of that rigid family government. So if this is anything to go by, I won't be shocked if I turn out to be a mess in the future. Not at all.

So why is turning eighteen, not so great after all? Because turning eighteen is just like turning seventeen, or turning twenty eight. You grow a year older and are probably assumed to be of a mental capacity to be considered legally mature. Just like many other things, turning eighteen, is just another arbitrary, another hype, another year, another year too old. Because if I had my way, I would wish to never be born, so I will never ever have to live another day slowly dying. That's what we all are, we are all slowly dying, like it or not.

I will only hope for the best, expecting the worst.