By and large this summer has thrown me into adulthood full force. While just a few months ago I was doubting that I would ever feel old enough or ready for the adult like positions coming my way, I now realize just how funny the Lord is in preparing me for the so called real world everyone shivers at in college.
Turning 21 and becoming legal, graduating college, getting engaged, buying my first car, making student loan payments, moving out of my parents house for good, planning a wedding, starting a full time career... can you say hello adulthood? I feel as though I have aged 10 years in the course of a little over a month.
Here is the thing though, what even really constitutes being an adult in the first place? What defines this point in life? I feel the weight of heightened responsibility on my shoulders but is this what qualifies me to be an adult?
I always got somewhat frustrated when professors or friends would say phrases including the real world as if it is something outside of what I was experiencing, some other life that cannot be tapped into till graduation day when all of a sudden you are flung into this unknown world that is apparently more real than the past 20+ years of your life have been.
While I see where they are coming from I would also like to think the past two decades of my life have been more purposeful and as real as the rest of my life in adulthood will be.
Here I am peeking into the door of adulthood with one foot in and the other still desiring to hold on to the free spirit and joy of youthfulness. And I think that is okay. I am okay with growing up in some ways yet holding back in other ways. Sophisticating myself in the ways I need to professionally but giving myself the freedom to be who I am and incorporating my still young heart into all that I do.
Even though almost every life circumstance around me is pointing directly to society's view of adulthood, I am going to take it in stride and continue to learn how to live in freedom, joy, and truth-all characteristics of youth in my mind-despite what age I am.
Labels: about me, College, identity, life, reflections, thoughts
