Growing up is letting go. That phrase as been thrown around for a long time now, but I never really understood what it means to let go. The first question would be: what are we letting go of as we grow up? Childhood, sure. Youth, definitely. But it's more than just that. I am letting go of the idea that I will someday achieve and become my ideal self. But I guess I still do try sometimes. Dressing nicely the first week of school, maintaining a clean room right after break, doing homework diligently...all attempts, petty or otherwise. Yet, more and more, I realize that genetics is a funny thing. You can't escape it. I am wired a certain way, and my conscious mind really doesn't have any control over these factors. I will never be the social one at the party, the one with all the right outfits, the "it" girl. I will always be that girl who wears sweats and mismatched clothes by the second week of school.
Being in your 20s is also a funny thing. [Friends was the first sitcom about about 20-somethings finding their identities, settling in their careers, etc.] This is a decade where you become blank slates again. By the end of high school, I thought I knew everything about myself, how I operated as an person. Now, I walk around as an individual, and I have to somehow interact with this chaotic world outside of myself. It's a strange feeling, and I don't know any of the rules.
Even though I've been in a relationship for a while, I have never thought of it as two people sharing one life. I don't know how willing I would be to losing that kind of priceless freedom.
And as much as it is a beginning for most of us in a year or so, it is also an end to many things, things that we don't even know we will miss.
-g1