At eighteen we become legal adults. At eighteen we become true citizens of this world. Eighteen is when we begin to make real decisions about our life. Eighteen is when we often times move away, start accruing debt, building credit, pay real bills... Eighteen, the world says to us, "Alright, you are an adult now, act like one. Hope you survive."
Eighteen, in my book is still a child. I recently said to my mother, "You're still a child until you're not a child anymore." Now, that may not make sense to some people. But that is a fact. Some people are truly adult at eighteen, some younger, other's it takes much longer. The human brain is not fully developed/mature until around the age of twenty five. That means that until around the age of twenty five we as human beings are still making rash, immature decisions. If you think about the decisions that you made as a child, teenager, young adult; you may notice that many of those decisions were not well thought out, immature, risky; to put it simply, stupid (not to say that the moment you turn twenty five you instantly are mature and will make all the right decisions).
Now, there are those select few people in the world that are mature beyond their years. People that have a pretty descent grip on life and reality. Those people are far and few between. They are also fortunate. Most of us are still trying to grow up.
I know that I am.
My brain will be technically fully developed sometime in the year 2013. I turn twenty five in early January. That fact alone is still difficult for me to grasp. I am sure there is a myriad of thing's that makes it difficult for me to feel my age. It seems that only a short time ago I was a teenager believing wholeheartedly that I was not going to see my eighteenth birthday. That birthday came and went. I made it to eighteen. I was shocked. So, twenty one was the next big thing. No way I will make it. Twenty one too snuck up on me and disappeared as quickly as it came. I remember thinking that these ages were so much older than they have felt and presently feel.
So, here I am on the verge of brain adulthood, while by law I reached adulthood nearly seven years ago... and yet I still feel like a child. I am still growing up. Trying to grow up at any rate. It isn't easy. In fact, it is one of the hardest thing's to do. I find myself in a place where I see that I am NOT grown up. I thought I was... And by the books, by law, by many peoples standards I am. I graduated high school. I went to a missionary "school". I have had multiple jobs, a car, I got married, I got pregnant, I had miscarriages, I bought a house, had dogs, a marriage, a life, the list could go on and on. That all sounds pretty adult. So why do I still feel like a child?
I never gave myself time to be on my own. I finished school, and almost immediately went into Masters Commission. I went from living at home with my parents to living in a one bedroom apartment with eight other girls; a building with forty other people. When I finished that I almost immediately got married. I moved a plethora of times, from my parents home, to school, to my first apartment with a husband (and roommates), to my parents home again, to my first house, and back to my parents home. I have no lack of life experience, but I feel that I deeply lack in the adult arena. Because technically, I have never been on my own...
I am headed down a different road than upon which I ever expected to be.
Soon I will be on my own. Fully... Twenty five years old and on my own for the first time. It is sad... I currently reside in a corner of my sisters bedroom in my parents home. I only very recently procured a job. Don't have a car. Still don't have any money. You can see how this makes me feel like a child, right?
So I am growing up. FINALLY. I am not really sure if I postponed it, or if I just somehow missed it. Either way, adulthood has found me now and it is forcing it's way into my life. And it is scary. Deeply and utterly frightening. To be twenty five years old, dissolving a marriage, dealing with dividing up a home and money and all that comes with splitting one life back into two... Who wouldn't be scared?
Now I must grow up. Truly and amply. It is something that I cannot stop, even if nor no matter how much I wanted to. I cannot hide under my bed or blanket, pretend to be invisible, or plug my ears and hum it all away. It is here and now and it will not dissipate.
I do know that amidst all of this mess is a real opportunity. It is like the old adage says, "When one door closes, another one opens." Now I just need to decide which door I want to open. Or if I even want to open a door at all...
"We just ha[ve] to forgive ourselves...
for growing up".
