Sunday, February 7, 2010

Big Kid

"You were a child, crawlin' on your knees toward it. Makin' mama so proud, but your voice was too loud"
I think I've often wondered in the last few years when one stops being a "kid" and starts joining the adult world. Is it when you stop feeling innocent? Is it when you start paying your own rent, getting a job, getting married?
The line is blurry I suppose, and it probably happens earlier for some than others. I'm 25 now and of course that seems young to most, old to some (see people under 25). I remember almost graduating after 4 years in college then deciding to go a fifth year because I basically had no clue what to do with my life and was petrified of the real world...whatever that is.
Maybe it was a cowardly move, but I did what I felt I had to do, even if that added over $20,000 to my loan payback amount.
I personally think the idea of growing up and what that means is a question that is prevelant amongst my peers, maybe it was for those before me as well. Figuring things out is still scary. Part of me wonders if being the child of immigrants only heightened this experience. Living in the US is still in many ways so alien to my parents even after spending 25 years here. I wonder if that fear and uncertaintly has leaked into me. That distrust, that awkwardness, the need to stay in a protective bubble...
Sometimes I wish I was in that bubble, but I know that it could never have been that way for me. Heck, I already picked up and moved cross country, how far from your bubble can you get?
Paying rent, getting groceries, jobs, paying your way through grad school, taxes etc. Sometimes it seems like so much, I often wonder how grown ups do it.
But then I remember that I am one...maybe it gets easier as you go?
Sometimes I can't wait for my twenties to be over. Perhaps by my 30's I'll have some of this stuff figured out and maybe, just MAYBE get some ::gasp:: stability.

Hey a girl can dream...