Growing Up

 I always wanted to grow up. 

When I was a little girl, I would put on my mom's dresses and heels, slipping and sliding on extra fabric and too-large shoes. I flaunted the style, sure that I would be just as fashionable when I was older. 

When I was in middle school I started drinking coffee and messing around with makeup. I wanted to feel mature and cool, even if the taste of coffee was bitter and my foundation was orange. It made me feel like the adults in my life. It made me feel assured. 

When I was in high school, I daydreamed about how much better my life would be in college. I would find myself and open doors previously invisible to my eyes. I would have a cool friend group, like in the movies. I would go to parties and have long library days. I would buy groceries and eat out as often as I wanted. Everything would be on my own terms. 

My whole life, until this point, was motivated by the need to feel grown. I was always one step behind maturity, racing to catch up. What I failed to consider was the finish line; what would happen when I finally crossed it. My life was planned. The plan was precise and comforting. Elementary school, junior high, high school, college one after the other with little room for error. I knew what I was doing and what the next step would be. 

Until now. 

The best way my little theater kid heart can describe twenty-two years old is a nightmare scenario. Picture this: You rehearse for years and years. Literal blood, sweat, and tears are put into a fabulous production that is sure to be your magnum opus. You have imagined a perfect opening night more times than you care to count. After all, with so much time spent rehearsing and planning, success is inevitable. Until you get pushed on stage exactly as the curtain opens, exactly when you realize you are not prepared. The lights blind you and freeze every muscle in your body. Everything you knew flies out the window and you are left under a spotlight with a blank mind and no memory of the original plan for the show.  You clamor to remember something, anything, but you can't. What do you do now? 

I am currently trying to figure that out. I lived under the false perception that life is easier when you are grown up, whatever "grown up" means. This is a lucky illusion to grow up in, I know. The real world never had a reason to reach me in my childhood fantasies and I was unknowingly blissful, most of the time. Now, sitting in my big-girl apartment isn't nearly as exciting as I originally planned. I can't afford to decorate it all that much, and every time I walk in the door I am reminded that while it is my house, it doesn't feel like my home. My life is not nearly established enough to have a home away from Harborcreek, PA. The house across from the vineyards, with a fireplace and wrap around porch is home. My Arlington apartment is a house. Relatively meaningless, lacking memories.  

Memories are the hardest part of being twenty-two. They are a fresh, open-wound reminder of times you can never get back. Times my mom did my hair before I left for school, even when I was sixteen. Times my dad agreed to go jogging with me when I was sure I wanted to be a marathon runner. Times I could pet my childhood dog with no lingering awareness of the time I had left with him ticking by quickly. Times my siblings and I would glide around the kitchen in socks, putting on a figure skating performance rivaled only by Olympians. As I grow up, everyone and everything around me does too and I am not prepared to see those I love get old. I was the only one who was supposed to grow up and change. I wanted everything and everyone else to stay exactly how I loved them when I was young. 

And so as I stand here on stage, aware of the plan, but unable to use it, I fumble. The realization that life is simply one best guess after the other is sobering. There can't really be a plan after all, when the future is a guess, based on temporary circumstances. And when you are out in the real world, on your own, with memories as your fondest and worst companion, you realize that the finish line has moved so far ahead it's entirely out of sight. The line you thought you had crossed, was only an illusion and now, instead of a race, you find yourself in a maze. A maze that requires you to take one best guess after another until you get to whatever finish line is in store for you. 

Best, 

A-Very-Grown-Up-But-Not-Entirely-Adult Sam