Growing Up

 I have tried to tell my story eloquently, my story of leaving on a trip that I wan’t sure I’d bother to come home from. I’ve tried to write it with peace and with a look at the silver lining. But every time I sit down to write all that comes roaring to the surface is anger. All the left over feelings and mess of a season that didn’t go as planned. Anger and disappointment and some semblance of sadness. 

It’s the kind of disappointment that gets stuck in your bone marrow and trying to dig it out is just as painful as leaving it to fester. It’s the kind of anger that is really just pain hiding it’s face. It’s the kind of sadness that isn’t sadness really, it’s all the left over empty space from unmet expectations. 

I have this nagging desire to write about happy and cheerful things; in fact I tend to end in a shame spiral when all I can write about is the truth and the fact of the matter is, my last season did not go how I wanted it to and it ended in the exact way that I did not want it to. There is no blame to be placed and there is no redo to be done. Things are the way they are and there is very little to be done to change them. But that doesn’t stop my heart from crying, “This isn’t what we wanted! This could have been so beautiful!”

Disappointment is a new face I’ve had to learn. For so long I would not give anything the courtesy of an expectation and would just accept that nothing was in my control. I guess this is part of growing up, learning that having expectations is not bad and it is okay to be sad when they go unmet. Growing up doesn’t alway look like how I though it would. It’s a lot more of learning the things I missed while I was too sad and a lot less of getting taller. 

I suppose growing up looks different for a lot of people. I seldom am aware when I’m doing the growing, only when I’ve finished. This time though I can feel the stretching and it came with plenty of growing pains, just to make things interesting. This is no easy growing, it’s the kind that forces you to give it your full attention, and only then will it truly get underway. 

I used to think a lot about growing up, mostly as something I didn’t want to do. I thought being an adult would be boring and there would be no wonder left to explore. I was in fact wrong, there are plenty of adventures left to be had and much more to see. But in order to go on living part of the deal is growing a little. It doesn’t have to be all at once, that’s the part I got wrong, just that you do continue to grow and change and adapt. Most often I am either stuck in the past or too worried about the future, growing forces me to be in the present. If anything that’s the most uncomfortable part of it all. 

Sometimes life doesn’t happen the way we want or were even expecting. It’s something everyone knows but few are good at handling. I’m having to learn to deal with it instead of just giving up all my control and responsibility. It’s not an easy process and it’s honestly not a fun one. But I know that I will be better for it, it’s the perseverance that takes time. I say this often but only because I mean it, I’ll get there eventually and in my own time and that is okay.