So I already made my post for the day, but as I’m currently resting from cleaning bouts at the moment (about halfway done with the laundry and the living room is significantly cleaner), I thought I’d share some thoughts I’ve been having lately.
When I was a kid, like most kids, I assumed there would be some sort of defining moment when I grew up. I figured grown ups got to be grown ups through some kind of special coming of age thing, not necessarily a big ceremony, but some kind of moment where they just said to themselves “okay, I’m done with childhood, I am a grown up now”. Everyone over a certain age who’s reading this now is stifling the giggles, I’m betting. XD It’s a very silly idea, really, but things seem so black and white when you’re a kid, it seemed to make sense to me at the time.
After I graduated from high school (at 17) I figured I would “grow up” during college, that once I had my degree I would step out into the world, fully formed, and be able to grab life by the balls and get a job and an apartment and a cat in short order. Even up until I actually graduated from college, I seemed to think this would happen. But I didn’t actually do that much growing up in college (and honestly, I don’t think most people do these days). I was basically the same mess I’d been in high school, except now other people actually expected me to be able to stand on my own two feet, and I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to do that.
In hindsight, it’s kind of a miracle I even ended up moving to Ohio, and probably in large part due to my mother doing most of the hard work for me (she rented a moving van and drove all my crap up here, helped me pick out an apartment, etc etc etc). Hell, she was still doing a lot of the hard work for me last year, she helped me move into my current apartment too, she packed and unpacked a good deal of my stuff, even found my current apartment for me.
The fact is, ever since I moved here, I’ve been waiting for that magical moment where I go “oh, I’m an adult now!” and it never came. And I’m finally realizing that it probably never will.
The good news is, I am way more grown up now than I was when I moved to Cincinnati, and even than I was a year ago. Last year I attempted to apply to grad schools, except I put everything off to the very last minute. Most of the applications were due by December 1st, and I was still scrambling around like a headless chicken on the last day of November. It was incredibly stressful, and I spent several days just crying in frustration. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to try, as I was still dealing with fallout from my gall bladder surgery, an incredibly stressful retail job and all the stress from the bed bugs (it was after I’d moved to my current apartment, but for the first three months here I still jumped at every speck and spent nights lying awake in terror that they’d somehow pop up again, despite how careful we’d been during the move). If I’d been more self-aware at the time, I would have told my voice teacher and my mother (the main people pushing me) to lay off. I understand that they were pushing me because they thought I was stuck and needed a change, and they were right, but the change I needed right then had more to do with mental health and getting a different job than getting into grad school (and I don’t blame them, their hearts were in the right place).
This year, I’m ready. My grad school applications are due December 1st. I’ve already contacted most of the people at the schools I’m applying. I’m planning to re-take the GRE (my last scores are really old and only average because I didn’t study at all) by the end of October, and I fully intend to have all my paperwork and everything mailed in by the middle of November, so by November 28th I can be coming home from work and enjoying a cold beer, rather than freaking out about transcripts and recommendation letters and everything.
I never had a magical moment of feeling like a grown up, and as I said, I don’t think I ever will. I still laugh at stupid jokes, play video games and enjoy playing with dolls. But the past two weeks I’ve been really proud of how many decisions I’ve made and things I’ve done because I knew I had to do them, that they were necessary. I don’t feel like a grown up, really. I feel like a kid playing at being a grown up. But I’m doing a pretty darn good job of it, and that’s good enough for me.
MirrorMe 