Growing Up Is Hard

(Photo by thom♥)

But what isn't?

I have spent enough late nights in bed pondering about anything and everything to realize that I am at a certain point in my life where it feels like every possible change is happening all at once. That, to me, is what growing up feels like; being suddenly bombarded by new experiences, countless decisions, responsibilities, disappointments and of course, mistakes. It's definitely interesting to see the way that our idea of 'growing up' evolves with us as we age. In the early stages of life, we tend to restrict the things that we associate with the future to career choices and questions like “What do you want to be when you're older?” or “Where do you see yourself in five or ten years' time?” We often don't give ourselves the time to think about other things that make up the whole picture, and I think that's what makes the situation slightly problematic. I mean, years of schooling did not give me any sort of preparation for this. No one ever told me how much I would have to deal with.

As if trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life isn't difficult and terrifying enough, something about reaching my twenties really put things into perspective. I guess it was a combination of the circumstances and the idea itself. For me, turning twenty years old marked the start of the rest of my life. It was around that time when I noticed that people around me were beginning to make decisions or talk about things that I'd hardly (if not never) thought of before. In my head I just wanted to get through university, and I thought that was enough. Things like getting experience and repaying student loan and moving out were often tossed around in conversations which, in all honesty, felt a little unsettling. Ultimately I realized that the more I thought about it the more I needed to convince myself that it's just life happening, and life is always happening. It's been happening all around me way before I even turned twenty, and that's no reason to panic. It was simply a matter of understanding my own situation irrespective of other people. Their life is not my life, and vice versa. The main thing is to know the importance of taking things at my own pace.

In this way I learned more about myself. I learned about what it means to really take the time to re-evaluate the things that matter to me (relationships, beliefs, work, etc.), and have a good grasp of where I stand at that point in time in terms of those things. I think one of the biggest parts of growing up is being comfortable with the idea that while you are going through changes yourself, so are the people and everything else around you. You will find that these changes slowly shape your perception of not only who you are and the world, but also your relationship with others. It's important to understand that things cannot and do not remain the same forever, and in time it will bring you to the realization that people in your life may disappoint you more times than you expect. However, sometimes relationships between people reach certain limits too. These limits can be anything from situations that result to people getting hurt, to ones where people just become incompatible with each other. With that in mind, I have come to terms with the fact that sometimes we have to make a decision about who is worth keeping in our life and who should be let go. This is probably one of the hardest things to learn about growing up, but it also strengthens us and pushes us to become a better person.

At the same time, I also realized that even I had a few misconceptions about myself. Not that I thought I was perfect or anything, but I saw myself in a certain way that didn't really match who I actually was, if that makes sense. It wasn't for the sake of anyone either, it was more something that I thought gave me a good idea of the kind of person that I am. I think that's an important part of being able to function as an individual in this world as well – having a good sense of identity and what sets you apart from other people. It came to me that perhaps who I am is actually something more than what I've been telling myself; that there are things about me that I may not like but still need to acknowledge, and that's okay. The fun of living is actually being able to go into each new day and experiencing it, finding yourself. Most of the stress of knowing exactly who you are come from people who probably don't know themselves any better than you know yourself. And in time you come to accept that it's okay to be nowhere, or anywhere. Not everything is about having a future figured out, and not everyone lives for the same reason. It's okay to rebel, it's okay to screw up more than once (provided that you're learning from the experience). It's okay to be unhappy, and it's also okay to put yourself first every once in a while.

Growing up is something that we don't see happening. Only once we've grown do we realize that we've actually gone through some (or a lot of) changes. This is why I don't understand why they (as in, you know, those people) make it such a big deal for children to know what they want to be when they grow up. How about asking who they want to be then they grow up? We are a different person every day. Life is a journey, not a race, and though we have little time to figure things out, we might as well enjoy the ride.

Take care of yourself.