Sadly, I don't have any goggles.

It almost reached 80 degrees today. Now, that doesn't seem so historic, especially for Georgia, a state that fluctuates between Arctic and Sahara temperatures, but lately we've regressed back to autumn weather. Luckily enough though, we were blessed with some refreshing sunshine and some magnificent breezes today. Because of the way the certain chain of events lined up, my brother decided he wanted to go swimming, and for some odd reason, my mother agreed. I came down just in time to see them leave, and I got dragged into it all. No complaints from me, but the timing was oddly coincidental.

So a swimsuit change and a short car ride later, we arrive at the pool, and the first thing my brother does? Jump in, of course. I, on the other hand, decided to take a more tactical approach and slowly waddle my way into the freezing abyss of ice. While my brother was fooling around accidentally swallowing chlorine pool water and having water fights with himself, I was conjuring up the courage to stick my head underwater. Thirty minutes later, the deed was done.

The moment I jolted my head under the water, it was as if my stress melted away -- like my anxiety-coated exterior was penetrated by the piercing bubbles to a layer of carefree euphoria. And soon after, I began floating around on my back, letting the sun devour the worries that lay in my skin, and truly living in the moment. I've lived my life for the past three years in constant worry for the future: how hard is the test going to be next year? What is the final going to be like? How's my GPA compared to hers? Do colleges accept that as AP credit? What am I going to write for my college essays? I've spent so many hours incessantly and neurotically researching colleges and figuring out ways to maneuver my way around my lack of a good SAT score that I forget that life is going on at the moment. I forget that there is a present -- that there is a day and time to enjoy before I lose it. I fear that one day I will reminisce over my youth and realize that there is a gap from my naive childhood to my experienced adulthood. I feel the wrath of a giant black hole swallowing any semblance of an adolescence because so far, it has been plagued by nerves and paranoia, stress and anxiety, hardheartedness and solemn denials. It's safe to say that I have a few too many coping mechanisms saved in my mental bank in case I don't get into one of my top colleges. But it's things like that which ignite a flame of concern in me -- students these days are trying so desperately to shape their future into a stable one that they don't realize their future is still determined by present time.

It's all about the five year, ten year, fifteen year plan. It's about what rank and percent you graduate in from high school. It's about the college you attend, the graduate school you enroll in, and the job opportunities and networking chances you're lucky enough to find. It's about who you meet and when you meet them, and it's about where you are in life. Somehow, life has become a picture that each individual has cut into tiny little pieces. And it's like the puzzle pieces have gotten so torn, ripped, and dirty through the first few years of high school that they're almost impossible to piece back together. So what now? What happens to the plan that we all worked on so diligently?

As a youth so ingrained in a society focused on the future, we need to learn how to embrace spontaneity and cut around the edges a bit. If our puzzle pieces don't fit together all the way, then we can shave off the sides, or add a little structure to the edges. We don't have to follow an outline, a rubric, or a syllabus. We have the capability of letting loose, of being a teenager, of dunking your head underwater and blowing bubbles in the pool. We are too busy putting on sunscreen and making sure we have enough towels for everyone that we never have time to cannonball into the water and chase each other around. I'm not saying to dive straight in, head first because we all know the ramifications for that. I have plenty of bruises to vote against that idea, but as one of the most competitive and stressed out generations in history, we need to learn to accept that it's okay to let loose and feel the crashing water collide against your face and sync our heartbeats with the pace of our kicks.

Sadly, I don't have any goggles. So it won't be the clearest of times, and there won't be a visible destination always, but life moves along just as swimmingly.