Day 20: Begging to be taken seriously...

What does it really mean to grow up?
a.Get bigger
b.Get older
c.Get a job

There are many differing opinions on this one. When you're very young, everyone bigger is automatically older and wiser, from the paperboy to the mailman to the grandfather living across the street. It seems to you that it will be just forever until you are "old enough" to matter. So then you get there... the next milestone you see. You turn that age you once looked up to, but for some reason IT FEELS NO DIFFERENT! you don't feel bigger older or wiser. And so it goes. You graduate eighth grade, then high school. You learn to drive, turn 18 and can vote, turn 21 and can drink (legally). I have known people who in all honestly don't act any different today when they are 20 than they did when they were 12.

But yet almost all of us, that it, my age, the college crowd, have probably said at least once: "Why don't they (insert... "my parents" or "my friends" here) trust me?" or something similar. And I've been frustrated with this from the day I went off to college. Frustrated because, damn it, I'm a good girl. I don't drink, smoke, or run around to frat houses. I study (though as I've mentioned before I do struggle from procrastination), I read, I do my work, I... do "everything right." But yet, my parents still see fit to lecture me on everything under the sun, and when my parents see me or talk to me, they can't seem to ever see when I've done anything right. Things I am proud of they just shoot down. And I wonder why I care, really care, so much about what they think. If I'm Miss Independent, if I'm all grown up and mature about life, why do I still screw up so much?

I WANT...
to buckle down and not procrastinate,
to not sleep through an alarm or make excuses,
to graduate with good grades,
to not let anyone down,
to go on to get a job I enjoy and that supports my living,
to (some years down the line) be a wife and a mother and own my own home,
to have pets and land and a place to finally call my own.

(And here I must admit... it feels DAMN GOOD to put that all down and stare at that list, realizing that, really, those are truly the goals my heart desires, and it's not an impossible list, a pipe dream, and a terrible trek to get there, after all. )

Once I got going, making my list of wants, of plans, of desires for the future, it came so fast and so simply. I encourage everyone to try it, and maybe post it in a blog, because honestly nothing is more freeing than realizing there is a potential for SO MANY people to see a post and read it and know your heart. How can you slack ever again when everyone knows your goals, and everyone will know if you have followed through?

So, honestly this post is an extension of a sort of odd epiphany I had over thanksgiving break. I had time with my family, and time to look at them, and think about why I really look up to each of them. Let me explain, I was, for many years, the youngest kid in my family, so I was the baby, and I've had plenty of cousins to watch through the years.

Now, the majority of them are in their 30's and married/have kids. And I stare at them and wish I could bypass college and go straight to that; to a stable life with a set schedule where you go to work, come home, and forget about work until the next day. Where you have weekends (usually) off and where you have the same people you love to look forward to after every single day. Really, I want the structure. Thats where I failed when I came to college, I lost the structure, and even though I'm a pretty organized person, but having freedom, although it was nice, gave me too much time for my mind to wander, to look at the possibilities in front of me. I unfortunately like the computer too much. Or rather, the internet. Ironic, since that's where I am now. :)

So I like the internet, or rather go through phases of addiction to different things, like a game (*cough*Second Life*cough*) or a site (You Tube.. I like following channels with a storyline...). It kills me, but I often stay up late doing it, being distracted, which causes me to lose mucho sleep, and then I sleep through the morning and sometimes miss classes, it's terrible but true and i know if I can learn to control that part of my life i will do SO MUCH better at everything else. Ha, did you ever notice sometimes you are thinking things but you don't realize them, or really acknowledge them until you put them down on paper? This is a pretty stream of consciousness post for me today, and forgive me if it comes through too much. I'm really just trying to get to the point. :)

My point is, since I now see where I have gone wrong and can or need to change, I know how to change and how to fix it. I've given myself the power by thinking it all out, and to do this, to be able to change how I've been living, to see where I am wrong and fix it, to be mature enough to admit when I was wrong to the world (ok to the few who read my blog)... THAT is what it means to "grow up." We look up to those people we choose to look up to because it always seems that they have it all together. When you're a few years old, the paperboy is the one who has a job and had money to spend, when you're in eighth grade the High School kids are applying to college, when you're in college the 30 year olds have jobs and families.

Always we are aspiring to be more organized, and more IN CONTROL of our lives. But just because we can be in control doesn't mean we all take responsibility for it. My peers who go out every night and drink to the point of recklessness, even those older than me, are not in any way more mature than me, but just because I don't have the same vices they do doesn't make me any better. If they stay out drinking and I stay up playing a game, come on, admit it, I'm still on their level. My goal and my battle cry is to get past these things, these stupid addictions holding me back. In 5 years who will know what I did in Second Life, or how many beers the kid down the hall can drink? They'll only see the job we both do (or do not) have and judge us as we judge the world, by how much we "have it together." So in fact, stating my goal for the next few weeks or rather the rest of my life as "I want to get it together," is really a much deeper statement then it seems.

And I'd like to challenge you now. If you see someone else struggling to grow up, to get out of the rut of addiction, of holding onto something that's holding them back, I'd like you to slap them in the face (not literally, I don't condone violence ;)) with the facts of their life, because often the people outside one's life can see the life so much clearly than the person living the life. I've had people do that for me in the past,and it really does help. Although sometimes it is required to state these facts MANY TIMES before it can soak in.

I know I'm not going to be perfect from now on. In fact, I KNOW I will fail a few times. To expect perfection is idiotic, but to accept failure is insane. I know I can do better, and I always will have pride in myself. College is a buffer time, time for growth before we hit the Real World. So, college students, seize this time while you can. Fail a few times, but be mindful of your failure, and use it to improve. You have a minimum of 4 WHOLE YEARS to fail, and if you don't fail once all the more power to you, but I have a feeling that means you haven't yet grown enough to fail. Or you're still not open to see the failure and admit it. If you have any personal things you have a need to let out, any failures to reason out on paper (erm, virtual... paper...?) feel free to post a comment, or email me, because I'd love your feedback.

Forgive my lack of posts in the past week, but it was all minute adjustments to this post, as I wanted to sound lucid. Thank you for being patient!