Growing up: the one thing that scared Peter Pan, the one thing that has to happen to everyone and the thing that scares me most. How am I supposed to "adult" when I still feel like a kid? When is that single moment that shows you that yes, you are growing up and it is OK? Because I don't feel like I have had that moment. Or maybe I am overlooking all my adult ways to hold on to that little string of childhood just a little while longer. Whatever the case may be, I just know that growing up is becoming more and more real as this year begins.
I am starting to have to make adult decisions such as finding a big girl job, plan for the future I dream of having, make hard life decision such as do I renew my lease or move in with my boyfriend and so many more that I am in over my head. One would think that this should be easy and it should just come naturally, but I don't know how to exactly go about doing this whole "growing up" thing. I never really learned how to grow up or the proper steps to take at 22 to get your life rolling.
My schools never taught me the steps to buying a house, how to properly find the kind of job you want, the best way to save money when it comes to things like utilities, or even how to write a check for that matter. How am I supposed to graduate in 11 months and literally not know how to do anything besides what Jeffery Chaucer meant in each of his "Canterbury Tales" or how to find the circumference of a circle? That stuff I know, but God forbid any class take a day to teach us how to write a check which would have helped us more in the long run.
I think also what is holding me back from starting to be an adult is that I am not ready to let go of my childhood and the comfort of my parents. They have literally done everything for me besides make me a bowl of cereal every time I was hungry. Which in return makes them seem to pull harder on the leash they have on me to not grow up as well. How do I start to tell them that I no longer read "Junie B. Jones" like I did when I was a little girl? That they need to allow me to enter this world but will never lose their baby and that she needs to start having her own life apart from them?
The idea of growing up is something that scares me most, and overthinking this can send me into a full-fledged panic attack, because I feel ill prepared. Yet, part of me tells myself that I can do this. I am going to screw up, that is inevitable, but I will find my way. Just like my parents did, and they were a lot younger than I was when they entered the grown up world. Heck, at my age, my mom was pregnant with me. So if they did it, I guess I can too, right? It is going to be hard, but this is my time and what my life lessons have prepped me for. This thing called growing up.
