Growing up

There are some days I feel like I'm really bad at this whole "growing up" thing. I always thought, or was told, that having a baby when I did made me grow up quicker than I was supposed to. While I don't disagree with this statement as a general fact, with me I'm not sure it's entirely true.

When I got married at 18, I thought I was grown up. I had been out of the house for a year, living in a dorm at NIU. My ex-husband asked me to marry him and my mother's first reaction was shock. She told me under no circumstances should I be getting married, that I was throwing my life away, etc. As a teenager, I heard blah blah blah "no" blah blah so I immediately got married. Looking back on it, it was more a simple act of rebellion than really being in love and my mother was, at least partly, right.

However, I live my life with no regrets. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have Caitlin. And, although I spent a lot of her childhood also trying to finish out my own, she really has changed my outlook on things. Being just 20 years apart, I feel like I can understand her better when she actually lets me in. It's a relationship that means so much to me.

Most days, though, I feel like that grown up thing is juuuuust out of my reach. I would really like to buy a house, but the truth is I'm not entirely sure I know where I want to settle down at or that I'm necessarily ready to make that big of a commitment. Honestly, it feels weird to even think about buying a house. No house could possibly be the house I grew up in, no neighborhood could have the feeling of my old neighborhood (even though kids don't even really go outside anymore!). It feels like failing before I even get started.

This year, a lot of the stupid debt I got myself into in college will finally roll off my credit report. My car will be paid for. I'll be married. I'm transitioning, at 31 years old, into adulthood... but I don't even know where to begin. I have a job that I truly love and look forward to going to every morning, but the idea of working in one place for the rest of my life still terrifies me. Am I doing what I should be doing? Is this my life? Is it my turn to sit back and watch my daughter grow up and cross "being a kid" off my life list? It's all new and scary.

E.E. Cummings once said "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." Maybe my problem is that, through all my brashness, I truly lack courage. But I guess until I've truly leaped without looking I won't know that I have that courage. Or maybe true courage is knowing where you're going to land without having to look.

SAD and shit...

I suffer, and some days that term is more literal than others, with seasonal affective disorder (aptly SAD in acronym form).

It's kind of an embarrassing thing to admit, like a failure in my chemical composition. The truth is, even with fairly massive amounts of vitamin D in my system, my mind in the winter is a barren wasteland of snow and land mines.

I can't imagine I am too easy to deal with. Usually, I come home from with (in the dark), flop down unceremoniously on the couch and proceed to move as little as possible until it's time for bed. Repeat cycle x 3 - 4 months.

This year, however, it seems to have hit me with a vengeance. I've been plowing through the vitamin D like candy, but it's not making a dent. It's affecting my love life, my work life, my personal life... I've gained weight and lost a lot of desire to do anything about it.

I say these things not to be "poor me'" that's not my style. I want to raise awareness for a very real health condition. There is nothing wrong with getting the winter blues and I, personally, spent far too much of my life feeling like there was.

It's a simple fact of life. That said, I'm still waiting impatiently for spring. Bring on the sunshine!

Past lives...

I often tell stories from my childhood, stories about running away from home, nearly scaring the babysitter to death by covering my little sister in ketchup... generally designed to make the listener laugh and shake their heads at the terror I was when I was younger.

Looking back, though, it often feels like telling a story about someone else. I often describe it as the feeling of past lives, all intersecting in one body. When I talk about being 16, I can't remember what it felt like to have that much anger and rebellion in my body. When I talk about having my daughter, I don't recall the pain or the feelings involved. It happened, it changed me... and it is in the past.

People often say that the past comes back to bite us when we least expect it. I find it odd that we are judged by our past failures and choices, as though people can never change or grow or adapt. I think that is an awfully grim assessment. I know that I, personally, have made mistakes. I've hurt people, I've hurt myself, I've refused to change even in the face of pain.

But that doesn't mean I'm that same person. My failures have taught me lessons, made me grow. If I met myself back when I made those choices, I wouldn't like myself much. I have no regrets, but I'm also not proud of those decisions either. 

So, my question to you is... do people truly change? Are we all just better, 2.0 versions of who we used to be and/or prototype versions of who we will be? Or do we remain stuck in the purgatory of our youth?