Growing up is learning to swim

“When you’re older, dear,” my mother said.

“When will I be older?” I asked.

“When you’re all grown up. Like us,” said my father.

So I wondered. What does it mean to grow up?

At age 5, I thought it was having a job. At age 10, I thought it was wearing a bra. At age 12, I believed that it was being in love.

And so, at age 13, when I couldn’t come up with anything else more… concrete, I tried. Even though I couldn’t – not really, not then – I tried. I tried for years. Sometimes, every now and then, I still feel like I’m only trying.

Because sometimes we do pretend. We spend all that energy trying to grow up, and grow up fast, that, just for a while, we pretend to know what it’s all about. We cry for ourselves and pretend that it was for someone else. We laugh because we want to and claim it’s because they made us. We refuse to recognize the power of the individual, the power we have over ourselves, so much and over and over again.

And yet...

And yet, during those years of in-between, of growing-up-but-not-quite, those feelings are our sanctuary. If we didn’t feel like we’ve got our lives figured out at 15 or if we didn’t assume our feelings to be unchanging at 16, we wouldn’t have felt safe.

Self-rationalization is the teenagers’ home base.

And then comes a stage where we look around us, more than we’ve ever looked before. Its like being older has suddenly opened our eyes and filled our heads with this chronic need to relate. To someone, some thing, a story, a song. We look at other people, other stories besides ours, and we see them so clearly, down to the smallest details. ‘I must have grown up,’ you think, ‘To be able to see so well.’

Sometimes, their stories influence you. Influence you to the point where you crave that idea, their idea, with a desperation akin to escapism. It’s thinking that, if only you had something like that, your life would just be copacetic. You crave that idea more than anything of real substance and emotion. Sometimes, you let go fast; if you’re lucky. Sometimes you latch on so tightly that it drags you down.

Sometimes, some of us have to fight harder to grow up and realize that it doesn’t work that way. Not really.

It took me many, many years to finally understand the meaning of growing up. And I was surprised to find out that wasn’t nearly as complicated as I once thought it was.

Growing up is learning to swim. Not just staying afloat, but to swim. To move your limbs and pump your lungs and feel the strain in your muscles. It’s learning to learn how to move your body from the little ripples in the water. It’s going the distance without fear and going under when you feel like it.

Swimming.

I’m still learning how to swim. I think I will be for a good couple years. But this I can say: I won’t rest till I’ve perfected my technique. I’m finally out of my home base.

If you're feeling lost, you're heading in the right direction

I’m just over a month past my 25th birthday and I won’t lie to you – I am totally lost. It’s completely normal for people my age and yet I didn’t expect it to feel or look anything like this. In fact, I was the type of little girl who always knew what she wanted, always had a plan laid out in front of her, always the one with a bright picture of where I saw myself all grown-up. So, you can imagine my surprise when this year people would ask me what I had planned for the future and my response was simply I’m not really sure.

At first I was hopelessly in denial, finding myself in long conversations with older adults about grad schools, traveling, and going back into campaign politics. The truth is, while all of those sound like great ideas I’m not sure if I want to do all of them, any of them, or none of them at all.

It isn’t just career-wise either. I’m all over the map when it comes to my love life too. It’s like I don’t even have a type anymore. I couldn’t tell you what I was looking for in a hook-up buddy let alone a boyfriend or a girlfriend. While most girls my age have a deal breaker list, I feel like mine is an ever changing document that I’m not even sure when to follow. It feels like this part in my life is just one big search party where no one can tell me what we’re supposed to be looking for in the first place.

It’s not a comforting feeling.

The worst part is when I look around at some of my peers, and while most of them are in the same boat, there are a select few that make me feel like I’m flunking out of school. You know the people I’m talking about – the engaged ones, the ones with amazing jobs with nice salaries, the ones who always have instagram pictures in different countries while I spend a good portion of my lunch break wondering how they afforded to just… leave.

After a while I stopped being in denial and started accepting it for what it is – the lost years. Then I got to a point recently where I started to think that being this lost meant I wasn’t moving forward in life. I blame my birthday for me realizing that I’m heading into an entirely new portion of my twenties where shit’s supposed to start making more sense not less sense. The thought only fills me with an anxiety so thick I have to lay down afterwards in order not to throw up. It’s like all of a sudden, when I picture my future all I see is blurry images surrounded by fog.

What I do know is there are a lot of things I’m ruling out by experiencing them. All these places I want to live, things I do and do not want to have in a potential relationship, areas I am interested in pursing career wise. It’s as if by a process of elimination I’m figuring out each next step as it comes along. Yet, maybe, the things in my life that feel like failures are actually helping me begin to see things as they come into focus.

Do I still feel lost? Yes and no. I’m no longer that little girl with a linear plan for what and who I want in my life. I allow things to happen and even if they don’t work out I use it as a map that is slowly but surely leading me out of these lost years and into something better.

How do I know I’m headed in the right direction? Sometimes things happen that feel the opposite of good, am I really heading the right way? You’re only going in the wrong direction is you stop living, if you stop taking chances, stop searching for answers to how to live the life of your dreams. As long as you’re doing that, even if you’re lost, you’re headed in the right direction.

To those I've casually dated:

I would ask how it’s going, but I already know. I know because I’m not afraid to look you up, or say hi, or meet you for drinks. I know because keeping up with you doesn’t torment me. I’m glad to know you’re doing well; I’m glad you’re there to retweet my tweets. I’m glad we never made it to the point of no return. I'm glad that even when we did, we managed to circle back to civility and friendship.

What we had wasn’t epic, and it certainly wasn’t eternal – but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t special. We swapped stories and spit; most times, we shared more than that. Beds. Meals. Toothbrushes. Homes. We met each other’s friends, and sometimes even each other’s families. That was good enough, wasn’t it? Great, even. We devoured each other’s details; we ate up the minutiae like every date was Christmas. My mind felt more full when I left you; it was overflowing with wonder. You never gave yourself away and I’d think, “As it should be.”

Of course, it was far from perfect. You’d hurt me once in a while; maybe you’d neglect my birthday or our rendezvous would become infrequent; then nonexistent. We became too indifferent to argue about anything. I wanted to hate you, but I’d have to love you first – and maybe I never quite got there, did I? What a relief.

Don’t get me wrong. I considered it in the most casual way possible. I really Liked You. But saying, “I Love You,” and meaning it, that’s heavy. We were too fun for that. We Liked Each Other Too Much. Seems silly, seems almost childish, but we couldn’t love each other because we liked each other. ‘Like’ is a pompom, it’s a firework. It’s celebratory and exciting. But love? Love is a tattoo. Love is a 16-car pileup. Love is a scar. Permanent; crippling; ugly.

We never made it there, but that’s okay. We made it to other places. We made it to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dallas, but never to our final plans in Chicago. We made it to my bedroom, where you made me watch Pawn Stars for the first time. We made it to unmarked bars, to outdoor campfires by the lake, to the beach. We made it to the underside of bridges. We played poker, we played phone tag. We made out in the rain and in the middle of sidewalks for so long that it went from clichéd to avant-garde and then back again. We got kicked out of places together; we got locked out of places together. That certainly counts for something.

You taught me what People I Loved couldn’t – that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That I don’t have to regret my choices. Sometimes, I made pretty good ones – like dating you. I learned that dating should feel good. It shouldn’t cause your teeth to gnash; it shouldn’t wrack you with anxiety. It didn't have to be all or nothing. You taught me that the default after the regression of a relationship isn’t complete and utter destruction. It can be a friendly text, a retweet, a thumbs up when one of us accomplishes something we’ve been working at for years.

Thanks for giving me memories, giving me your friendship, giving me hope. I’m always rooting for you.

XO (Drinks soon?)

Finding a true calling

When I was younger, I wish someone had told me straight-up that not all adults experience “a calling”. That many of them never find particular purpose in a career. That sometimes, their job is just what pays the bills and they have to seek satisfaction and fulfillment elsewhere. That sometimes, a job is simply just a way to make money to enjoy life. That having a job you may not love isn't terrible, employment is not about personal fulfillment.

Because as an adult, this pervasive notion that there exists a perfect path for everyone, that people should love what they do, and that work is meant to function as a vehicle for fulfilling a person’s grand life destiny is not only inaccurate for many of us, it can be toxic.

The ideal is so ingrained that I have to remind myself constantly I’m not a failure because I don’t adore my job, and because I’m not rocking the world with my work. That is okay. I am not a failure because I chose to keep my hobbies just that, hobbies that I can enjoy. There is nothing wrong with taking a path that allows me to enjoy life, while doing something that I may not have always dreamed of doing.

Maybe we all need to collectively unlearn the idea that certain achievements like graduating college, getting a job, and moving out only count if they’re achieved by a certain age or within a “normal” time frame. Maybe it's time we all learned that going through life at your own pace does NOT equate laziness or failure. None of our accomplishments have an expiration date.

Sometimes, work is just work. There isn’t always a perfect career path, magically waiting to be discovered. There may not be a calling waiting to be heard to perfect your life. There might not be this thing you were born to do. Don't sit around waiting to discover what you want to be when you grow up.

Because, sometimes, you discover that what you really want to be when you grow up is “paid”.

True relationship goals

I no longer want someone who promises to always love me and never leave me, I need someone who understands that life happens and sometimes things don’t work out. I need someone that understands that while we want nothing more than each other, we can survive on our own. I need someone that doesn't make me feel like my life will stop if they walk away. Standing alone is just as important as standing together.

I don’t want someone who sugar coats things and never gets angry with me, I need someone to tell me how it really is and put me in my place. I need you to call me on my bullshit and stand firm in your beliefs. I need to have someone as strong willed and stubborn as I am because I know that I can be wrong. We both will make mistakes and be wrong, but we can understand and accept being corrected.

I don't have to share every interest with you. We don't have to mirror the other's likes and dislikes. I had life before you, I have likes outside of you. Don't change who you are or what you like to please me. Because I certainly won't do that for you. I need to be able to tell you with passion why I love ballet and spill out how a tour jeté makes me feel more alive than anything even when you don't understand. I want to listen to you talk about a baseball team with a record that I don't understand.

I need to be able to go five hours without talking to you and not feel lost or incomplete. I am complete without you. But with you, I want to be so much better. I want to be stronger with you. I will not rely on you to give me self worth or to value my presence. I want to stand beside you. Not below you. Not on a pedestal. We are equals. I want us to grow together and help each other grow individually.

I don’t need you, but I really fucking want you. 

Leaving comfort for courage

Courage will always require an element of leaving. Leaving is just plain hard.

Leaving comfort for courage makes me want to wrap my arms around every ounce of safety in my life, hoping if I hold on tight enough that I won’t have to taste the pain of the leaving what I know is inevitable. Leaving comfort and safety looks and sounds alluring and attractive, but the attraction fades quickly—in fact, I have never felt so vulnerable, small, and needy...words that are not known for their alluring appeal.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to question your decision. It will cause you to look around for the safety bars, seatbelt, and any kind of security button. You will look for the easy way out because maybe this isn't worth it.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to try to make something happen. You will scheme, make phone calls, send out Hail Mary e-mails—anything to distract from sitting in the fear.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to doubt your abilities. You will look at everything that you have failed at in the past—failed relationships, failed financial decisions, failed leadership calls—and you will wonder if you will repeat those patterns and if they are indicators to go out and look for comfort again.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to be jealous of your neighbors. They all seem to be perfectly content with their lives. You will wonder if you are some sort of crazy person that has a unhealthy propensity to live on the edge.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to white knuckle yourself around anything that feels secure and semi-safe.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause others to question you. Especially those that have found security to be a bedrock to build their lives on. You will be misunderstood, questioned, and perhaps even seen as foolish.

I am terrified, but I am willing to try.