age
What makes a person older?
What is the true definition of mature?
After tomorrow, my summer classes will be over, and though I've officially been a Sophomore for over six weeks, confusion strikes me again. I do not feel old. Legally, in all accounts, I am still underage. I am still not officially allowed to drink.
Yet I am in college and I dorm and responsibility is being thrust at me in so many different ways. I will fail if I don't pass my paper. I will gain weight if I eat this donut. I will miss this opportunity if I don't take it. My life is in my hands. So many duties, and I haven't even made myself into the person who I want to be.
Sometimes I think if the people around me weren't growing up, I wouldn't change. I would still be my fifth grade self, innocently crushing on Mickey Knauss and voraciously reading my children's books. If the people around me didn't grow up, making me feel as if I were older, I would still be sighing over the love of my Kindergarten life and sleeping comfortably with my parents. But people around me do change, and with this change, they affect me and the flow of my thinking. After all, the principle of panta rei still stands.
Woodrose gave me tolerance and gratitude. La Salle gave me courage and confidence. College gave me... What did college give me, besides hickeys and hangovers? Am I mature now that I've had both? What else? The ability to write an damn good paper?! Perhaps it gave me direction. Perhaps it gave me a reality check by showing me what I can or cannot do (or get away with). Perhaps it gave me a little wisdom, though it doesn't feel like I've gained much (come to think of it, that word also has an ambiguous definition that I'd rather not delve into now).
Is it experience that has made me older? Does that mean if I had been locked up in a room for almost-eighteen years I wouldn't have aged a bit (disregarding my physical form, of course)? Was Tarzan, then, technically a child when they found him?
I've changed a lot. Other people see it, and I know it. There are a lot of things I've done that would have horrified my Freshman Self--my High School Self--my Grade School Self. I am not the dreamer that I once was, but neither am I fully grown.
Is there even such a thing? "Fully grown?"
I used to think that growing up was synonymous to the process of gaining independence and freedom. What a naive view of life! There are free and independent people who are still so childlike. God damn it, think of Peter Pan. And even as I write this, I know that it is a product of my youth that makes me do it. The topic and the questions are so damn young. But I'm putting aside my usual aged jadedness to ask this: So what is the definition now?
What is it?
What is it?
What is the true definition of mature?
After tomorrow, my summer classes will be over, and though I've officially been a Sophomore for over six weeks, confusion strikes me again. I do not feel old. Legally, in all accounts, I am still underage. I am still not officially allowed to drink.
Yet I am in college and I dorm and responsibility is being thrust at me in so many different ways. I will fail if I don't pass my paper. I will gain weight if I eat this donut. I will miss this opportunity if I don't take it. My life is in my hands. So many duties, and I haven't even made myself into the person who I want to be.
Sometimes I think if the people around me weren't growing up, I wouldn't change. I would still be my fifth grade self, innocently crushing on Mickey Knauss and voraciously reading my children's books. If the people around me didn't grow up, making me feel as if I were older, I would still be sighing over the love of my Kindergarten life and sleeping comfortably with my parents. But people around me do change, and with this change, they affect me and the flow of my thinking. After all, the principle of panta rei still stands.
Woodrose gave me tolerance and gratitude. La Salle gave me courage and confidence. College gave me... What did college give me, besides hickeys and hangovers? Am I mature now that I've had both? What else? The ability to write an damn good paper?! Perhaps it gave me direction. Perhaps it gave me a reality check by showing me what I can or cannot do (or get away with). Perhaps it gave me a little wisdom, though it doesn't feel like I've gained much (come to think of it, that word also has an ambiguous definition that I'd rather not delve into now).
Is it experience that has made me older? Does that mean if I had been locked up in a room for almost-eighteen years I wouldn't have aged a bit (disregarding my physical form, of course)? Was Tarzan, then, technically a child when they found him?
I've changed a lot. Other people see it, and I know it. There are a lot of things I've done that would have horrified my Freshman Self--my High School Self--my Grade School Self. I am not the dreamer that I once was, but neither am I fully grown.
Is there even such a thing? "Fully grown?"
I used to think that growing up was synonymous to the process of gaining independence and freedom. What a naive view of life! There are free and independent people who are still so childlike. God damn it, think of Peter Pan. And even as I write this, I know that it is a product of my youth that makes me do it. The topic and the questions are so damn young. But I'm putting aside my usual aged jadedness to ask this: So what is the definition now?
What is it?
What is it?