There is a point in each of our lives where we must grow up. We have no choice. Life has handed us every ripe lemon from Harris Teeter and we have each, independently, chosen what drink to drink.
We have no choice but to grow up, at the end of the day, life is what happens. Our own age tells it's own fairytale. We learn how to pay bills, change the oil in our car..or pay someone to do so, we learn how to handle heartache, we learn how to protect our own selves because nobody else can. We learn who to trust and who to push away, who to fight for and who is not worth fighting with. We learn that our battles, are not everyone else's battles, and that our own demons should make us stronger, not hinder us.
So, while we may not have the choice to grow up because life tells us to, everyday we wake up brush our teeth, increase our heartbeat with coffee, and traipse our way to the office, and pray to God that one douchebag will just leave you alone for the day.
And somewhere in our mid-twenties I think, well at least this is my perception, we all wonder what this growing up shenangins is all about.
Really, because I sure did love my job working in produce stand when I was 16 and I could take naps if no one was around then get paid cash money, go home to a nice meal where mom and dad paid all the bills and that cash money was mine...not the cable and electric companies. Granted, the rules and regulations of living under your parents roof and the idiotic tendencies of being 16 by no circumstances made me an upstanding citizen, but I only had 3 thought processes at the time. What are my besties doing, will I ever have a boyfriend, and where do I go to college.
At the time I had no clue that going to college....actually meant paying for college. Or having a cell phone meant paying a cell phone bill. Or having chicken for dinner, meant paying $5 for the package of chicken.
Now, here I am 10 years later, faced with some of the same struggles but on a much bigger scale, and without the solace of my bedroom in my parents home surround by the securities of childhood and their bank account. But rather faced life with my own accord.
Somehow over the past 10 years I have managed to graduate college and simultaneously get myself $25,000 in debt, had jobs, quit jobs, had boyfriends, dumped boyfriends, broken cars, fixed cars, had friends, lost friends, made even greater friends, flown across the country and booked my own ticket, played college softball and broken many bones, had a savings account, completely wiped the savings account dry, been stranded on the side of the road, not been able to run 0.5 miles, ran 5 miles, eaten mushrooms, got a speeding ticket, paid my own way out of the speeding ticket..without the use of tears, drank too many beers, seen the sunrise on the east coast and set on the west coast, all with golden sand between my feet facing the horizon, slept in my car, cried those tears that start in the bottom of your stomach and almost come out of your body as throw-up, laughed so hard that people probably wanted to throw shards of glass at me to end the non-sense, drank the rockies on the beach under the moonlight, and watched Beetlejuice for the first time, been yelled at by my friends, and laughed an entire 3 hour car-ride with my friends.
I get by with a little help from my friends.
And now we have the same worries, tackle on new worries, bigger worries, independent demons.
I still wonder what my besties are doing, but thanks to the cell phone bill I pay, I can quickly find out.
I still wonder will I have a boyfriend, but now it has escalated to will I ever get married and do I even believe in the constitution of marriage.
I still wonder about college, and will I ever go back. Will I become like so many other working adults and have a 9-5 job and then class afterwards. Can I handle the intensity, can I be good at both? Do I really want to add to my college debt?
And I have fought every demon in my head and wondered if any of my decisions were the right decision. Will my future decisions be the right decision? Will I wake up when I'm 50 and wonder if I squeezed the right lemons.
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