Crossroads

Lately I have been struggling with the idea of "adulthood" and what, exactly, it means to be "grown up." I wonder if I am a perpetual child, or if I am merely becoming more childlike as I grow older, but I am personally realizing my complete opposition to traditional adulthood. Why are we required to know exactly what we want to do and establish ourselves in a singularly rooted place now, at 24, with the expectation that we will always want to be right there? I am still exploring...not ready to settle down and decide.

And who says we have to?

There was a time, when I was with you, that I thought I was ready to decide on my eternity. I think I would be perfectly happy in that eternity if it hadn't ended, but now that it has, I have to find my own without you. I hope you know that none of this would be happening now if it weren't for you...

So I've been thinking about being grown up. Sure, I'm grown up, right? Been physically mature for about thirteen years now, been able to buy cigarettes and vote for over six years, have been free to purchase alcohol for almost four years, have had a Bachelor's degree for over two, and will soon have a Master's degree...but are these signs of adulthood, and how come I feel no different? Funny you should ask! Because I think I have an answer...

I'm NOT different! That's the answer... We all seem to think there's going to be a moment when we will suddenly BE different, but these moments do not occur in this world. We are, and then gradually we are not. Perhaps when all of this gradual fading finishes, we suddenly feel the jolt of there being no more childhood and we jump a little with the shock of it, wonder where it's gone, never realizing we've been dropping it behind us like popcorn on a path, except unconsciously. And of course the birds have devoured it and there is no way to follow it back to wherever we came from...not that we remember where that was, or the way there.

My parents have expressed a growing worry over my perpetual education, and I can't decide what the fear stems from, exactly. Are they afraid that I will continue to live in their home and spend their money for my entire life, or are they afraid that I will never settle into staid, matronly ways with sticky children and a sedate husband who cleans out the P-trap? Maybe they suspect that the time will come in my life where I will be old, single, and over-educated, regretting the fact that I am old, single, and over-educated. Unfortunately, I am afraid that I would be more likely to regret being old, married, parental, and wishing I would have discovered and fulfilled my dreams. Dreams are important: each of us has only one life in which to dream them, understand them, and fulfill them. The time is constantly running out, and I would hate to look back and realize I always did what someone else wanted me to do, never what I wanted.

I used to be more than the grown up child who had no where to go, no future...I had somewhere to go. It was a matter of time till we packed up and hit the road together, you and me, but you found a new road without me, and now it's time for me to pick up the pieces of those dreams and find a new life on my own.

I considered an analogy today, and a very ordinary, well-worn analogy at that...but an analogy nonetheless. The analogy was the fork in the road analogy. In the past 6 years, or so, of my life, there have been many forks in the road, most often the options were to pursue my educational dreams, or pursue the easy route. I perpetually choose the "easy" route, the stay here and do what I know route. Sometimes I've stayed for love--maybe every time--and now that I have no love, now that the fork one of the roads has been chosen for me, I am again at a place where I can choose to follow my dreams, or continue on the path I have chosen time and again. As I stare at the signs, my feet pointing habitually in the direction of English literature and comfortable familiarity, my eyes gaze with longing on the fresh clean sign pointing me in the direct opposite direction, the sign that reads "NEW LIFE" in bright paint, toward a freshly paved road. I can't help but wonder, as I see it, will this be the last time the road brings me back to this crossroad. If I never see this sign again, will I forever regret not turning that way, just once, after all the opportunities I've had to do so? I don't regret not doing it to this point, because I would never change the paths I've walked upon, would never go back to a life in which I didn't know Aron, would never go into the past and erase that life I once lived and longed for with him in spite of the pain of its ending, but going down this road now would not cause me to lose him in memory. This road could mark a new beginning for me, a new hope, a new future, and I could take it now and not regret the choice, because then I will know instead of wonder.

I had always thought I would choose that road, at the next crossroad, except with you...now I'll be walking it alone. But I think I want to go anyway. I'll miss the companionship, but I need to try my own wings for a change. Thank you for teaching me about myself.

Don't tell anyone, but I still hope the road leads back to you in time.