regarding smallness

growing up can be strange.

maturing and gaining responsibilities in your life is sometimes a frightening experience. it consistently shocks me when i realize how old i am. i think about my ten year old self. the young girl who thought that 16 was the be all and end all of life. that no matter what, 16 was the start of adulthood, was the touchstone for a new and better place. and then i was sixteen. and realized that fuck no, it was not at all adulthood, but 18 probably would be.

and now i am 20. and it is getting harder and harder to justify that my adult life is still on the horizon.

i am growing up, maturing, blossoming into the person i want to be. i plan things in advance, think about my life in the future. i am being more and more responsible with myself and my choices. i work, full time, and a part-time job to stay afloat. i go to bed at a reasonable hour, i save and invest in my future, i pay for my tuition.

people rush into aging. as a child, most people want to grow up, be big, age and become an adult. setting the rules for yourself looks amazing from the height of four feet; controlling what you eat, do and when you go to sleep seems like the most perfect thing to a young child. and as you grow, new responsibilities are added to your life. you have homework, then a job, then a school and rent, then possibly another person, then more people you are in charge of. and suddenly, eating what someone else tells you is "good for you" doesn't seem like such a bad option. having to go to bed at 7:30 on a school night seems like a good plan as you work on the 9th essay you have due in a month at 4 in the morning. someone to look after you and take care of you and make sure your safe seems like a pretty great way to live.

hindsight is 20/20, and looking back it's hard to remember what was so awful about having the responsibilities of a child. yes children can be mean, and some people where tortured by others as children. cuts and scrapes and the harsh words of peers can fog the bliss that was childhood for many. but when you think about it, it's hard to really consider a life of school, sleep and friends as so difficult when you suddenly need to grow up.

i know i'm not completely independent and worldly. i've never been to far flung countries, seen the other ocean, spoken to someone who valued clean water as gold. i still have a lot of growing up to do. but i also know that i look around at friends and peers my age who have nothing together. and i feel glad for my neurosis, proud of my obsession with planning and lists. because i know what i want to do and what i need to do to get there.

the experiences in my life have shaped me irrevocably into the person i am today. i crave approval like oxygen, respond harshly to criticism; i plan plan plan and panic when those plans don't work out to the letter. i shut myself off from the world when i am dealing with problems, i don't like to cry in front of people. i list things out all the time, even my own attributes and character flaws for the world to see. and i'm learning how to talk, to open up, to speak my mind. i made a vow to myself years ago that i would never stand quietly while the world went by. i would yell, scream, speak out about what was happening to me.

and as i grow up, i'm realizing and learning how to do that.
and spending my money on a megaphone.