Growing Up Out of a Glass
Growing up sucks. We've heard it a million times. There's the constant working at boring, useless jobs, only to come home and be tired and need to go to bed in order to do it all over again. There's the friends you miss and the places you miss. There's the wrinkling of features and the aches in places you didn't know had a name.
Okay. So growing up sucks. We're aware. But wait. Before "sucks" is the only label that we attach to growing up, how about a new one.
I am here to say that, sucking and all, growing up ain't so bad.
In the last year alone I have learned more about myself, my own mind, the mind of others, the people I love, the people I neglect, the places I choose to live and the home I choose to make than I have in all the other years combined. Being young was a training ground. Growing up is when you get to test how well you did. And apparently, I did okay.
I keep in touch with so many people, all over the world - from Logan in a boat somewhere in the Pacific or the Atlantic or wherever he happens to be at the moment to Lizabelle in Maine. They show me they care about me not by calling all the time, but by making the calls and the visits we do have all the more memorable. I don't need to check a list of things I should recount about our time apart, but instead get to sit in a diner with Dominique and shoot the breeze about love, life and everything in between over a couple of oh-my-god-these-are-awesome sandwiches.
As a grown-up I can still dance in the shower to Hilary Duff or in my bedroom to Avril Lavigne or all through my house to Britney. I can still treat the dance floor of a crowded club as if it were empty.
I can also sit on a porch and hear my heart sung to me by Joshua Radin and talk about every deep, wonderful, hurtful, REAL thing on my mind to the man I share my life and my home with. And in those conversations, we can discover together that our love for eachother may be different but they are both infinite in their own ways. Most of all, we can talk about leaving that love and still love at the same time. We can accept our lives will change and diverge. We can accept that growing up sucks. And then we can talk about how crazy we are, laugh at random things, and feel less alone knowing that someone else is accepting our flaws - hearing them rather than discounting them - accepting them rather than brushing them away.
And mistakes...I get to keep making those too. They are half the fun. Mistakes make you see things in a different light. The worst of times can beget the best of times. We can still surprise ourselves. That never goes away. I have a lot to learn. A lot more mistakes to make. A life to live.
I'll never forget this year of growing up: of Boston, of Andrew, of my condo...of new friends and old friends...of being incredibly sad, increasingly complete and extremely liberated all at the same time.
And when it's time to move on, I'll grow up once more. I'll find new places to explore and hearts to dissect and avenues of my brain to travel.
So yes, it's true...growing up "ain't so bad."
Okay. So growing up sucks. We're aware. But wait. Before "sucks" is the only label that we attach to growing up, how about a new one.
I am here to say that, sucking and all, growing up ain't so bad.
In the last year alone I have learned more about myself, my own mind, the mind of others, the people I love, the people I neglect, the places I choose to live and the home I choose to make than I have in all the other years combined. Being young was a training ground. Growing up is when you get to test how well you did. And apparently, I did okay.
I keep in touch with so many people, all over the world - from Logan in a boat somewhere in the Pacific or the Atlantic or wherever he happens to be at the moment to Lizabelle in Maine. They show me they care about me not by calling all the time, but by making the calls and the visits we do have all the more memorable. I don't need to check a list of things I should recount about our time apart, but instead get to sit in a diner with Dominique and shoot the breeze about love, life and everything in between over a couple of oh-my-god-these-are-awesome sandwiches.
As a grown-up I can still dance in the shower to Hilary Duff or in my bedroom to Avril Lavigne or all through my house to Britney. I can still treat the dance floor of a crowded club as if it were empty.
I can also sit on a porch and hear my heart sung to me by Joshua Radin and talk about every deep, wonderful, hurtful, REAL thing on my mind to the man I share my life and my home with. And in those conversations, we can discover together that our love for eachother may be different but they are both infinite in their own ways. Most of all, we can talk about leaving that love and still love at the same time. We can accept our lives will change and diverge. We can accept that growing up sucks. And then we can talk about how crazy we are, laugh at random things, and feel less alone knowing that someone else is accepting our flaws - hearing them rather than discounting them - accepting them rather than brushing them away.
And mistakes...I get to keep making those too. They are half the fun. Mistakes make you see things in a different light. The worst of times can beget the best of times. We can still surprise ourselves. That never goes away. I have a lot to learn. A lot more mistakes to make. A life to live.
I'll never forget this year of growing up: of Boston, of Andrew, of my condo...of new friends and old friends...of being incredibly sad, increasingly complete and extremely liberated all at the same time.
And when it's time to move on, I'll grow up once more. I'll find new places to explore and hearts to dissect and avenues of my brain to travel.
So yes, it's true...growing up "ain't so bad."