18

18

Hey babes! 

Last week I turned the big one eight, and yes it is just a number... but in many ways it is a concept in its own. You are considered an adult at eighteen. You are formally recognized in society as an adult.

For the past seven months time has been somewhat inanimate to me, just a way to measure something, but not- real. My life morphed and changed before I even had a chance to process it. I got my acceptance letter from my gap year program around a month before the end of my junior year of high school. When I read the email, I was sitting in my second block and suddenly questions and fear of "had I done enough" crept in, but my excitement overshadowed any negativity.  

My summer was full of my online classes. Days flew by, as many times I stayed up late finishing assignments.  My friends worked and I had classes, sunny warm days seemingly passed and I became a night owl. I worked best at night. Many days were coffee dates with my self, I needed the caffeine to help me finish whatever assignments I procrastinated and left till the last minute.  The days I did have free I diligently spent at the beach with my best friends taking in the last moments I had with them before I left. 

Regularly I was asked if I was scared or nervous and every time I answered honestly with no actually not at all. It wasn't because I didn't have any fears... it was because it never felt real. The only moment it set in that I was in fact graduating early and moving to Madrid for a year was the moment I stepped on to the red carpet at the start of my graduating.  All of the sudden my breathing heightened and I watched as my parents waved at me, a tear fell.  

I graduated three days after I finished my online courses and I was scheduled to drive to New York a week later. The last week was extremely hectic. Like I said earlier I am a procrasinator so... yep I left practically everything to do with packing and all that gist for the last minute. I packed only two days before I left and really finished only an hour before we left for New York.  My friends came over my last night and brought me the most precious gift I have ever received (shoutout to foolishness but moreover NTMF) if you know you know. It was a scrap book full of pictures of all of my best friends and me, with notes from all my girls, and most of my guys. I will keep that thing forever. 

My flight to Madrid was out of New York, so my mom, stepdad, and I planned to drive up two days before to relax and spend some quality time together before I departed for Spain. The weekend was exactly what my mom and I needed. It was closure, lots of heart to heart talks.  But again, I couldn't find sadness in my bones, I genuinely did not feel like I was flying away from everything I knew- everything I was comfortable with. I only cried once that weekend and it was the moment I had to leave my mom and stepdad to go through security and to my gate. Everything hit me at once. 

Anyways three months FLEW by and here I am on my second semester picking up where I left off. 

Eighteen hit me hard because it was a slap in the face full of reflection.  It forced me to sit back for a minute and look at how far I have came from my last birthday. Obviously eighteen is so young, but I remember being a freshman and looking up to the seniors, thinking about how old they were, and now I am on the other side of where I once was. 

I celebrated my eighteenth in the amazing city of London with three of my girlfriends studying here. It was too much fun, I felt like a princess, my girls actually got me a crown and made me wear it, so that's that. 

We celebrated, and surely made it a birthday weekend I will never forget. London itself is a beauty so the fact that I got to spend my birthday there was through beyond comprehension. 

Lets talk about London for a second... London is one of those places where you can imagine yourself living in a one bedroom apartment with the perfect amount of nothing, working an internship, trying to make it in a world where everyone else is too. The city is inhabited by some of the best dressed humans I have ever witnessed. It's just like the movies, and their accents are beautiful, it makes me sad that I don't have one.

I wrote a long glimpse into the weekend previously, but it didn't feel write. This kind of came out no where, and relays a message and deeper look into what this birthday meant to me. As well, it shares more of the behinds of what went into my gap year.  I'm thinking of doing a post about my gap year, how I did it, do I recommend it, and my advice, so please text or dm me if that is something ya'll would be interested in seeing. 

Below are some pictures from my weekend in London, go give em a look!

xoxo, 

Lauren.