I never really experienced rites of passage that people typically do throughout childhood and adolescence. I had an unusual upbringing in the sense that I was consistently uprooted due to a number of overseas moves, which led to my general lack of knowledge/interest about these “traditional” rites of passage.

Here are a handful high school rites of passages I never experienced:

• Graduating from primary/middle school in order to enter high school
  I left my first middle school in the US at the end of sixth grade, which meant I missed out on the eighth grade graduation. At my new school in Australia, students graduated from primary school in year six and not year seven. I transferred to my Australian school at the beginning of year seven, so I had just missed out on graduation. The first time I ever graduated from anything was when I completed high school!
• Sweet sixteen birthday party
  My sixteenth birthday was a quiet and lonely affair. I had just moved to Chicago from Australia, and I didn’t know anyone in Chicago besides my immediate family. My sixteenth birthday “party” was comprised of myself, my mother, my brother, and a chocolate cake. It was nice, but definitely not the sweet sixteen bash many kids expect on their sixteenth birthdays.
• Driver’s license at sixteen
  I didn’t get my driver’s license at sixteen. Honestly, I was never bothered by this, I managed just fine without one. Besides, I think sixteen is too young to drive; the thought of the sixteen year olds I know on the roads scares me.
• Getting my first car
  This ties in with the whole driver’s license thing, for obvious reasons. However, I also have zero interest in getting a car of my own. The area I live in has good public transportation, and where I go to for college has excellent public transport. Ideally I’d like to live in a city like London, Paris, or Hong Kong after I graduate from college, all of which have phenomenal public transport and there is no need for a car. I don’t want to deal with car payments, insurance, maintenance, gas… it’s all money I’d rather not spend on something I don’t see as needing.
• Getting my first job
  Unlike most teenagers, I didn’t get my first job in high school. I was on a student visa in Australia so I legally was not allowed to work, and then my final two years of high school took so much time and energy out of me that I didn’t even want to think about a job. (I don’t count babysitting gigs as an “official” job.) I did get a job at college though, it just took me a little longer than most of my classmates to get the ball rolling on the job front.

Tags: birthdays, driving, friday five, high school