Skip to main content

Growing up.

It's time I acknowledged a phenomenon. It's weird, and it's been going on for a while. Quite a while, actually. But it just now turned this weird. 

I'm growing up.

How do I know? 
I'm looking for a job. I have a driver's license. I actually like tomatoes now. I graduated from high school. I'm taking the ACT and doing college applications. I'm going to get luggage. I'm a laurel: all the 12-year-old kids look at me like, "wowwww, she's beautiful and perfect and I want to be like her someday" (a look I'm still not comfortable receiving). And I am going to be a legal adult in ten weeks.

I look around at some of my friends who were in my position just one or two years ago. They look like adults. Guys, in one or two years, I'm going to look like an adult.

Pardon me while I go freak out a little bit. 

 A friend recently compared life to a river that swept her along so fast she barely had time to glance at amazing people and experiences that she passed by on her way. I'm inclined to agree with her. As I look back on my life, it seems like it has gone so fast up to this point. The last three years have flashed by in a blur. ...which makes it kind of scary to think about the next three years. In three years, give or take, I'll be off my church mission, getting ready for school, whether at BYU-Provo, BYU-Idaho, SVU, George Wythe, or wherever I decide to go, I have no clue. I'll be a fully legal adult (21 and all that). I'll be pretty much fully on my own. I'll be looking for a husband, and going to all my friends' weddings. IS THIS NOT SCARY?!

But you know what's most scary to me? 
It's the little things, like the fact that I'm going to buy my own groceries. I've bought groceries before, so it should be only a mild to moderate adventure (food shopping never goes completely smoothly for me. Let's not talk about that ;). But it's the fact that I'll be the one buying them. For me. I'm going to have my own laptop--that means it's mine, and I'll set my own rules. I'm going to set my own curfew, arrange my own schedule. On Sunday mornings, it'll be me taking me to church. And I'm not going to have a family to sit with. Just Catherine, by herself on a pew until she makes some friends. (Then I'm going to sit with friends at church, and that's going to be the weirdest.) When I sleep in, that will be lame, because Mom won't be there to be backup alarm. :P When I go somewhere, I'll have to run over my checklist in my head and make sure I have my keys, because nobody's going to be doing that for me. I'll be my own boss. 

Never have I valued parents, older siblings, aunts and uncles, mentors, teachers, and adult friends so much in my life. Never have I listened with so much concentration every time advice was given. Never have I been so terrified to face the next step in my entire life.

Never have I been more excited.

I struggle to put this feeling into words, but I don't know why I bother, because it seems like if it could be done, it would have been done a long time ago, and I would have heard it or read it. There's no way I can describe this to people who haven't experienced it, and I don't really need to describe it to people who have, do I? But I'm petrified and impatient and eager and restless and afraid. Part of me wants to go back to life as a kid, but part of me is fighting the bit, just barely contained out of wild excitement for the next phase. But it's by no means going to be easy...

 I don't know how to tie this song in well, but it's somehow applicable, and I love it, and it made me cry the first several times I heard it.


Here goes--I'm growing up.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Dallin WardAugust 23, 2013 at 10:16 PM

    Chip, this post is amazing! It's how I'm starting to feel too... :P Oh well, all is well in Zion! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CatherineAugust 23, 2013 at 10:24 PM

      Trust me, it only gets worse! ;) Good luck!

      Delete
    2. UnknownAugust 26, 2013 at 2:29 PM

      Pahahaha! Chip, I've been trying to avoid that thought lately. ;) Life in high school seems so blissful compared to the uncertainty of venturing out into the world...but you totally got this. No doubt about it!

      Delete
    3. CatherineAugust 26, 2013 at 5:24 PM

      Haha, sorry I made you confront it. :P And yes... yes it does. Thanks!
      We need to talk sometime soon, about this or whatever else. I'm afraid I've been suffering Sanneke shortage in my life. I don't know how people who don't know you go on surviving. ;) Haha! You rock my socks. :D

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wanderers in a Strange Land

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." ~C.S. Lewis   Recently, it hit me in a totally new way, and has continued to do so, that we as human beings really are other-worldly creatures. We are not made for this world. We are wanderers in a strange land, poor wayfaring strangers here. We're equipped for this world, but it's not our natural habitat. What makes me think this? There are many things that have brought me to this conclusion. Let me list a few. Desires which nothing in this world can satisfy. There are so many of these, are there not? We hate goodbyes, whether that goodbye is temporary or long-term; we want to be with our friends and loved ones forever. We also want friendships that go so much deeper than is humanly possible. I don't know if I can describe this desire, but hopefully you've felt it and you know what I'm talking about. We want to...
8 comments
Read more

This is for You

My dear friend, I'm about to tell you something important, something true. Something I know from the bottom of my heart. it is not a painful truth, it's a happy, awesome one. It will make your life better when you know it, too.  But you are not going to believe me. You have self-conditioned to disbelieve what it is I am going to tell you. It's not that it would be painful to accept. It would, in fact, be wonderful. You don't accept it because you can't see it. But faith is believing in things we can't see. So I am asking you to suspend your disbelief for a minute and be willing to believe what I am about to tell you, because I KNOW it's true. And here it is. You... are beautiful. I'm serious. You have no idea. Girl, you're amazing! I know you can't see it in yourself, but even the most drop-dead, unbelievably beautiful people can't see it in themselves. And I'm telling you, you are so beautiful! Don't you dare disbelieve me! ;)...
5 comments
Read more

The Path

I feel like one of those characters at the end of an epic movie who finishes their quest in the exact same place as it started. The place looks the same, and so do other people, but they know they will never be the same. They cannot be.  The girl stands, looking up at the place where it all began, knowing she is not the same. She takes a deep breath. Runs her fingers through her hair. Sighs. But instead of end credits rolling, she turns around and realizes there's a path before her feet. It's foggy and twisty, but it's a path . She doesn't know where it goes. She takes one last look over her shoulder at all that she can see of her previous adventure. Then she turns and, without looking back, follows the path. She has no choice; she can't go back the way she came. So she goes forward, into the fog. She knows that somewhere along this path, someday, she will come to a place... and look up at it... and go inside... only to come out a different person. And she'll ...
6 comments
Read more