As a kid, it always seemed that adults know it all. If you ever went into a debate with one of your school friends, you could always have the final say by stating that "my mom says so," and that was that, we had the absolute unquestionable truth at hand.
Back when I was in middle school, one of my favorite ways of killing time was spending time with my friends imagining what we'd be when we "grow up", and by grow up, I usually estimated that around being 21. Well, they say it's when you're officially an adult.
I always thought I'd have it all figured out by then. A stable corporate job, a healthy relationship, and however movies portray adulthood. I always assumed getting there would flow naturally, yet little does anyone tell you what to expect. No one tells you how to be prepared. What if I'm not yet prepared to declare myself an adult? Why does everyone else still regard me as one?
You know all those cynical posts about how we used to wish we'd grow up, and how we now lament each time we wished for it? That never applied to me for two main reasons.
Ever since I was a kid, mostly around the age of eight or nine, I started being quite skeptical. I was also the protective figure among my friends. I may have often come off as the wise ass, but I didn't like taking things for granted. So while many of the other kids were just letting things be and enjoying not having to think minor details through, I was busy being the over-thinking nerd.
Nevertheless, I don't recall a time when my inner child and I were not intact and in sync. As we moved to college, it seemed that many girls of my age were quite unreluctant to tiptoe or dive into exploring womanhood. I, on the other hand, was busy exploring all the opportunities the world held for me. While people of my age were eager proving to everyone else how they've grown up, I went strolling with my inner child just having fun wherever we could find it.
I never felt the urge to let go of the little dude inside because, of all people, he's kept me so alive by being so spontaneous, and by believing in the little things like love, trust, faith, and all the good that lies out there. This little kid makes everything seem so simple.
But no matter how long you shut the world and society outside, they will eventually come knocking at your door, and bombard you with all the questions you never want to answer.
What are you actually doing here? Are you good enough? Are you even good at all? What is right? What is wrong? Is everything I've been taught true? What's the cost I have to pay for doubt? How can I ever know if the answers I reach are correct?
And while you're caught within this labyrinth which you have no recollection of entering in the first place, you hear all those people popping topics you couldn't care less about. Finding a suitable well paying job. Getting married. Being a decent tamed girl. Pleasing the society.
Now I'm at this point in my life where I feel like I have nothing to prove to anyone. For once, I need to let down my guard and stop over thinking. I am foremost driven by curiosity to explore. I want to do the right things and take pride in them. I want to do the wrong things and learn from them, too.
I'm 23, single, struggling to find a job that satisfies my potential rather than my bank account, not yet broke, but soon to be, and most of all, I feel free. I feel like there's so much that I need to explore and experience about myself by exploring the world outside.
While they're all rushing to book pre-wedding photo sessions, I'm constantly eager for my next trip to a place I've never been to with people I've never met. I'm eager for the next challenge that makes me sharper and stronger.
I can't give this up now. Not yet. I just can't see how growing up and settling down are even relevant. Growing up isn't by having fatter bank accounts and a ring around your finger; it's by being out there that I grow. This is how I want to grow.
If growing up means letting go of a free spirit to conform and fit into the mold of womanhood, then I'm scared like shit of growing up. I'm scared like shit of not being sincere to my inner child. I'm scared I'll have to be like everyone else, grown up and lifeless.
