Do we ever really grow up?
Will we ever truly feel our age or our maturity?
There are moments in time when I stop and realize the simple truth of my life. I'm 27, I live alone, pay my bills on time, I go to work, I make plans with friends, I keep a tight schedule of my appointments and obligations, I choose which classes to take and determine my course of action when it comes to working towards my dreams. I'm self aware, self sufficient, and self reliant. I have a diploma that claims I have completed two degrees, a license that says I have been a (relatively) safe operator of a motor vehicle for over 10 years, and a thousand memories and photographs that prove I've had my share of good times, good friends, relationships, and travels. And yet, even though all the signs point towards me being a grown woman approaching her 10 year high school reunion and her 30's, I still do not feel like the adult that I guess I am. Granted 27 is still quite young in the scheme of things but really...is it? By now there are people with homes, families, and businesses of their own. People who have corner offices and are working towards their white picket fences and two car garages. I'm not saying I envy them or what they have accomplished or that I feel like I am falling behind, I respect them and marvel at their lives, but I would not trade mine for theirs. I enjoy my messy one bedroom, my constant struggle to clean it, to purge the stuff I hold onto for no good reason. I know one day I will get it right, but it's not today. I like my car that will one day drink me out of house and home with the way gas prices are, I like how I feel so free as I get behind the wheel and hear the roar of the engine as I calculate spaces and time and distance and rush past exits and people. I like my simple waitress job, with all it's good days and bad, all it's slow nights and how I can get buy working 4 nights a week just barely paying my bills and budgeting for classes or weekends away. I enjoy that I am me, in all my optimistic days and all my horrible down times when I have to constantly battle myself to see the light, my over analytical thoughts and dark downward spins and times of carefree happiness. As I get older the only thing that seems clear is that we are never quite at a destination, but rather always in constant transition, growing, changing, never quite grasping our age or the way we appear to the rest of the world.
I asked my mom when I was home this past weekend....Do you ever truly feel your age?
Her response was simple and honest...No.
Even when you have a child who's been out of the house for 10 years, who's graduated college and has far surpassed the age you were when you had her, you still do not feel that you are the number we use to define ourselves. As if the number of years we are on this earth is really an irrelevant fact in who we are, further solidifying my belief that we never actually are grown up. I guess I should point out, if it wasn't self evident already, that I have a strange obsession with the idea of being grown up. As a child I wanted to grow up, like any normal kid, I wanted to be taken seriously, to be independent, mature. When I hit high school this idea changed a bit, I no longer wanted to keep growing up, to keep aging. I realized that this was my prime, that this was the best time of my life...I was a shy kid and hated it. I wanted to be outgoing, to be social, to feel like ME and this quiet girl who sat in the hallways at lunch was not the girl I knew I was. As much as it scared me I was determined to come out of my shell, and with the most amazing (and social) best friend ever I was able to learn confidence, to fake it, to put myself out there in situations where I'd like nothing better to do but to blend into the wall I stepped forward and changed. I knew that what the adults in my life told me must be true, that this was the best time of my life and that I needed to enjoy it. We only live once, and they had been there and were trying to instill their wisdom on me, trying to erase their past regrets by showing me how not to make my own. So I tried to enjoy my last years of high school, and then college. And before I knew it I was 23, out of school, on my own, lost, confused, with no direction. Then 25, the age I had sworn I'd be married by, the age that seemed so old just 10 years before, still feeling like a confused little girl in this big world, working, living, discovering. Not much changes other than the years that go by, people come and go leaving imprints on my past and my heart, friendships grow and die, and dreams and goals grow and change. Eventually you let go of the life you thought you wanted and focus on the one you know you want. And you change, you transition, you figure it out as you go.
And here I am...still wondering where the time has gone, still feeling like that timid little girl back in high school wondering if these are really the best years of her life, still striving to be the best me I can, still discovering myself and learning to accept my faults. Some days I love my life and who I am...some days I wish I could get back the fun and carefree party girl me I was for so long and just last year...and some days I wish I could be someone else, start over, disappear. Sometimes I long for that life I once thought I'd have, the grown up life 2.5 kids, a dog, a great husband with a steady job, a nice little home in the suburbs...but then I remember that that's not me anymore. That wouldn't satisfy me now that I'm here, now that I have become who I am, now that I realize that I am the type of person who will always wonder what comes next, and never be satisfied with the current day in and out. I love returning home, I love escaping this LA life, I love the beauty and the calm that engulfs me when I am there and the longing for the life I want in the distant future. I appreciate the way that I always seem to become a little melancholy and introspective when my visits are drawing to an end, the way I come back to LA contemplating my life and direction, it may seem strange but that's how I am. I'm a thinker, whether or not that is a good thing it's who I am. And for all my contradictions and my conflicting wants, dreams, beliefs...one thing remains true, I will never ever feel like I'm done growing up, changing, transitioning.
I will always be me, some things will never change, but who says I cannot have many facets? The brightest diamonds are those who sparkle with infinite beauty, cool and warm and brilliant in their clarity. If we are like diamonds, then there is not limit to the beauty we can emit, and there is no shame in letting your different sides catch the light and radiate our curiosity, our joys, and our sadnesses.
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