Growing Up

For some reason, yesterday I was really thinking a  lot about growing up. I guess it all started when my little sister and I were scrapbooking. I hadn’t done it in a awhile and it brought back a lot of memories to a few years before when I had really been into it. Even though that was a really rough time for me emotionally, my memories were almost that of fondness.

You see, I have this disease: I cannot seem to live in the present. My aspirations are usually diverted to some aspect of the past or the future. That is, thinking about what I’ve done and who I used to be, and then wishing about what I could do and who I want to be. (Does that make sense?) I have the hardest time living and accepting where I am today and trying to improve on that. Most of the time, I don’t really feel like I am living so much as I am merely existing. I don’t feel like I am soaking up the possibilities and potential around me and within me.

The crazy thing is, was the past even that great? Probably not. But I have this tendency to shade everything with a rosy glow of reminiscence. This is probably not entirely a bad thing; in fact, the ability to relate and relish my childhood and past is probably a good trait. But is it useful to dwell in what is done? It’s not that I even really want to be a little kid again—well sometimes I do—but mostly it’s just looking back at the carefree essence of being young and, in many cases, clueless about so many things. In fact, I think what I loved about being little was the mere fact that I lived in the moment. As a child, I didn’t worry too much about what I would eat next, if I would get my school work done, or even what the future would hold. Of course I did to some extent—building castles in the air, thinking how nice it would be to have a horse or be an accomplished author, stuff like that—but I was free of so many of the pressures that now crowd me in from ever side. And the worst of those pressures are the ones that come from within me.

~Free, free as the wind!~

Can we ever really detach ourselves from the past? Should we? Were the days of my unfettered youth (that sounds so much more dramatic than it ought) really that much better? Or do I just see it that way? What do I love about my childhood? Was it the fact that I didn’t care about food (ignorance is bliss)? Didn’t worry about exercise, and just moved for fun? Perhaps it was that connections were so much more valuable, computers didn’t rule my world,  and life was lived and relished?  (Enough with the rhetorical questions already!)

The experience for me is so bittersweet—like most things in life. On one hand, it is glorious and empowering to grow up, to know about the world, to understand things that I only marveled at previously, to see things that I didn’t know existed before, to live with a more acute awareness of the world, to have the ability to take charge of my life… But there is also so much more responsibility, some of which I have not even woken up to accepting yet. There is also the mounting pressure, as we all most certainly know. Whether it is the anxiety of work, the pressing deadlines of a school assignment, or the demands of family… stress is an unavoidable element of growing up. But, then again, it is nice to not worry about some things that used to cause me a lot of anxiety, like the possibility of monsters lurking in my closet. It sounds silly, I know, but I no longer worry about that. I guess it is all a deal of pluses and minuses, good things and bad things. What matters is that we make the best of where we are at. Old or young. But that is so much easier said than done. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

I think being an adolescent or pre-adolescent is invariably a difficult period in one’s life regardless. It is challenging to be not quite a child and not quite an adult…yet to live in both of those worlds, to some extent. I suppose that I am legally an adult but I don’t really consider myself one. When did you start considering yourself an adult? Do you think this title depends on age or on maturity or situation?

• What do you think about growing up?
• Do you sometimes wish you were a little kid again or do you love being an adult?
• What pros and cons have you noticed about growing up?

 
P.S. Kristen is having a “protein grenades” giveaway!
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“When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.” –1 Cor. 13:11-12

I love this verse. It is from one of my favorite passages in the Bible (the “love is patient, love is kind” one). You can read the rest here. I actually have the abbreviation for this passage engraved on the chastity ring I got for my 16th birthday (see photo at left).

  I actually wrote a silly little poem (vent) a couple years ago inspired by the part of the passage shared above. It’s not a great poem, but it was a way for me to get out my frustrations at the time…

~Growing Pains~

When I was a child,
I thought like a child;
I talked like a child.

Now I am older.
Sixteen**, as of the other day.
All of the dreams I used to
Hold before me—shattered like glass.

Lord, I know it’s your will;
Some things are beyond my grasp.
Still I wonder, why today?
Why me?
Why can’t this pass?

What would those aspirations mean for me,
If I still had a thing to hold to,
A dream to live for, a hope one
Day I could touch?

Life would be so different,
Yet, I’m as much
The person I ever was,
Because beauty is as beauty does.
~

**I was when I wrote this, not now obviously.