I strongly believed, and still do, in the "College Glo' Up" - the most anticipated maturing process for young adults. When I was in high school I thought that maturing was something immediate, defined, and would come so naturally to me that I wouldn't even notice. My mother and friends from back home would witness my epic 'Glo' up'. I wouldn't feel awkward anymore, and I wouldn't question whether everything I did was appropriate. Everything wouldn't matter so much.
The sad and nearly devastating thing about Glo'ing up is that it's not as immediate as you think, whether physical, mental, or emotional.
Physical Glo'ing up is most commonly expressed as the period after puberty when a person's body has changed drastically, blessing them in one way or another. For some people, it's getting thicker or smaller in all their right places, clear skin, and growing into facial features.
Mental and emotional Glo'ups are typically synonymous with one another. It's the belief that after going through a drastic change, such as a breakup or the transition to college, one will have a more enlightened view towards other people and the world around them while childish tendencies will fade.
When I first entered college I expected the drastic change of lifestyle to force a total 180 on my outlook; the mental and emotional Glo'up was most desirable to me. I would go to class, hang out with my roommates and try to make as many friends as possible because surely, I believed, new things and new people equaled a new me. Right?
No, unfortunately not. It took me a whole year to Glo'up. But why?
It's because I paid too much attention to results and not to process. The process is perhaps the only meaningful thing about mental and emotional Glo'ing up. It's when you learn to question everything about yourself instead of answering "this is just how I am."
I remember a time when I was feeling really alone and that I didn't have any meaningful relationships. I had a friend whose personality I thought was pretty similar to mine. We made the same jokes, we liked the same things, etc. etc. you get it. But she had more friends than me and she seemed so sure of herself.
I often found this irritating and made me pull away from her. One day we got into an argument that left me thinking, "why did I do that? Why did I say that? Do I really feel that way?"
I answered honestly. I talked to myself and questioned every response I gave. I kept nitpicking and stripping away my layers of defense and I came to realize that this childish tendency of mine is the result of ignoring myself.
In order to Glo'up I had to LISTEN to myself and examine why I felt a certain way. If I determined it as something to change, like a habit that tended to obstruct my relationship with the self and others, I would change it. I would give it time but do it so often that the act of doing so became second nature.
I would remember that this was, and is, a process and I would have to treat it as such. So when the time came when somebody finally said to me "wow you've really matured", I could finally say with a sheltered pride:
"Thanks, you really think so?"
