I was visiting with a very good friend of mine the
other day and it dawned on us that this year we are both turning 24. Mid
twenties! Its nearly 25, which is nearly 30, which is middle aged!
Ok, yeah maybe that’s a bit overboard, but you get
the point.
We chatted about it for a while, and neither of us
feels like adults. My friend is lucky; she still gets people thinking she's 17.
Me, well a couple of months ago I got someone ask if I'm 34!!!! Yeah, not a
nice prospect I'm telling you.
I mean, from my point of view I still feel 17 or
18, or maybe I think I should be 17 or 18. I always imagined people in their
mid-twenties to be stable, responsible, independent and capable of taking on
the world. But I am fast discovering that’s an absolute impossibility, at least
in my case it is!!!
I sometimes wonder if true maturity is realizing I will never be
mature.
I was so sure of myself when I was 18 and 19. I
thought I was ready to take on the world. I wanted to get married right then, I
had goals for my life, I had direction and I knew what I wanted. I was going to
make that all happen, I had so much energy and motivation. Perhaps it was just
teenage naiveness or maybe I'm looking at things with the jaded view of someone
who has been through pain and discovered the world is not there to make life
easy for me.
Because nowadays, I have no idea what I want. I
can hardly go from one day to the next without changing what my favorite color
or food is. I have no idea where my life is going. I have no idea even what
I'll be doing tomorrow - let alone next year. Heck, I don’t even know anymore
what I want to be when I grow up!!!!
Even most of my friends have changed. I hang out
with a totally different group of people. I would like to think that my choice
in friends is much better than it was 4-5 years ago. Funny thing is, my friends
nowadays seem weirder, but I think that is because they are real. They tell it
like it is, they enjoy life, they just be themselves. Unfortunately for me, I don’t
even feel mature enough to have such awesome friends, I used to feel worthy of
my friends as a teen. Now, I feel unworthy, I think they are too real and
precious to be spending time with silly, immature me!
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A few things have remained in my goal set. I still
want to road trip - I just don’t know if I'll ever get to it now. I still want
to marry - but right now I have no idea who or when. And I still want to live
forever - at least I know I can succeed in that goal and I know how to. I still
like my music. Oh yeah, and I still know
I DO NOT WANT KIDS!
But right now, I am just trying to survive day to
day. I am trying to work on my temper. I at least know I am not wife material
right now (yep, when I was 19 I actually thought I was "mature
enough" to be a wife), I can barely care for myself - so there's no way I
am ready to look after a household. And just to save up every penny I can for
one day (soon) when I hit the road.
So what can we say? Have I matured by realizing I
am not possibly mature yet? Or has my maturity level "regressed"?
There are so many differing ideas of
what true maturity actually means.
All I do know is that I have spoken to a bunch of
people from 35-65 years of age who all say they still wish they were in their
early 20s or even their teens and still feel like they are at that age.
What about YOU?
