I have A LOT of phobias (and the capitalisation I used there really isn't an exaggeration.) I'm scared of everything: spiders, dogs, strawberries... the list could go on. Instead of boring you with that list today, I'm going to pick one and share it with you. It's a little bit deep, in fact, I kind of feel like it might be a little too much to share on this 'creative space of ours', but I really want to know if there are other people out there who feel the same fear that I do...

I want to make it clear that I'm using the term 'fear of growing up' loosely - there's a lot more to this fear than just 'growing up' and that's exactly what I'm going to expand on in this post.

I can imagine what some people are thinking right now... probably something along the lines of  'why is she writing a post about this?', or '...but nobody wants to get older'. You're right... most people don't want to get older. This isn't an unusual, unknown fear... in fact, I can explain it quite easily. BUT, isn't the fact that I'm writing this post enough to explain just how scared I am of not just growing up, but the future itself.

Let's start with birthdays. To explain my fear of birthdays, I'm going to take you back in time to 2013. Specifically the date 28/09/2013: the day I turned 13. Even at an age so young, I hated the aspect of getting older every 28th of September. In fact, I guess it wasn't so much hatred, mainly just fear. And the worst part - that fear get's bigger the older I get. I'm turning 17 this year and I am literally dreading it. Here's the thing though, I'm not scared of my birthday because I'm going to be older...
I'm scared of my birthday because it means everyone else is getting older too. Eventually, the adults in my life will become elderly, the children in my life will become teens. The whole idea of growing up scares me so much.

Oh, and then there's becoming an adult... I can't cook; I don't know how to sort out bills or mortgages or insurance. And then there are all the completely random and not very important questions in my head that haven't been answered. What if someone breaks into my house? What if there's a fire? What do I do if there's a spider?!

Basically, although there's so much about the future that excites me, if I had the choice, I would stop time and carry on living at the age I am now. And if a time machine existed? Well, then I would go back to when I was 12.

What scares you most about the future?