Guess this is growing up


Work, this morning. Up at six, with far too little caffeine. The sun rising, all reds, oranges and blue, through the trees, sprinkled with a lousy covering of snow, barely an inch to be generous. Either I magically became a wimp over the summer, or it was cold outside. Difficult to tell sometimes, you know?  The drive was quiet, and beautiful too. Can't explain why I didn't turn up music. Sometimes it's nice to allow yourself a moment of peace. Seems like lately all that's been coming into my brain is more and more information with less and less time to fully process it. I'm like a child, in a way. Waking up on Monday, sure of my future status in the New York City ballet, then deciding before lunch that an English teacher at Yale would be preferable. Suppose it would be only fair to be honest. I don't know where I am going. Barely figured out who I am, for that matter, and they want answers already.

That is not the entire truth, come to think of it. I know where I want to go. I want to move far away from these subdivisions, and strip malls. Somewhere that I do not know roads naturally, some place I could rediscover for myself. The realist inside my head whispers that all places are essentially the same, and while I know that has some truth, it still leads me to pursue this train of thought with a passion.

They built a water tower near the office. Tried to make it look like an old Lighthouse. It's the most pitiful thing you could ever see, really. Chicago is land locked, you know? And though you can see the Willis/Sears tower from there, and the lake isn't all that faraway, it's about as nautical as the Sahara.

There are younger teenagers at work, in the hallways, awkwardly shuffling to their appointments, their parents sitting in the waiting room, with their copies of People Magazine or Golfer's Digest, or whatever sort of inferior reading material lies around on the table out there. If it were me, I would fill all of those sorts of waiting places with books about a million different topics, something would be bound to fascinating to someone.

Wonder how they would see me. Just a short girl, with ordinary brown eyes and ordinary brown hair, dark circles under her eyes, too pale skin, and a small smile, bending over file cabinets in a much too large sweater, my fingers cold and blue in the florescent lighting.
Doubt they would care.

The funniest thing happened though, I was getting some papers from the manager's office, and I had the huge box halfway into the hall. Some teenagers passed, maybe a year or two younger than me, off to the consultation room. And something shocked me of out the blue.
I'm no longer one of them really. There was a sensation that I had crossed a barrier of no return. In a state of panic, I attempted to recall the last time I engaged in a teenagerly conversation or act. Even with my friends, we act so old, our conversations are nothing like those that I overhear.

It is true, I have never been the epitome of normalcy for the fact, either. So it's hard to say for certain whether or not I can judge my growing up based on those around me.

But I looked at a Christmas card from Freshman year. A friend, my Dad, and I were compared it with our card from this year. And I looked at that dorky girl, with that ridiculous look on her face (I'd like to believe it was just an awkward phase and I'm more attractive than that now, but it might be wishful thinking), and think to myself:
"Who the hell is she?"

Myself, now, today, and the girl in that photo have entirely different views. We want different things. Have different relationships. Care about opposite things.
Our whole basis of what life means is so polar, that it's hard to see where the shifting happened.

Some things are definitely for the better. Others are debatably worse. I'm a lot less shocked by things then I was then, but in turn I'm also a lot less phased by things.

(Side note, I'm a much better writer than her, don't you dare go into the blog archives to the dark ages)

And worst of all, there have been people, things and dreams I've had to toss to the wind.
Life is just a revolving door, bringing people and adventure in and out of your particular window of life at an alarmingly fast rate. You need to learn to love without being shattered when you lose. You need to cherish every single moment you're given.

So I'm going to be in the now. Because I want twenty-five year old me to be able to look back and say "Hey, I was on the right track" when she thinks about me.

Just some very long winded thoughts.

10 comments:

  1. That whole 'crossing-over' thing... I remember when that happened to me. It was a weird feeling. But after a short while I came to see it as a positive change. I saw it as me maturing, growing up, and entering the next phase of my life. And I was all for it.

    But yeah, it can be a bit jarring when you first come across it; when you start seeing people even only the slightest bit younger than you seemingly being an entire generation behind you.

    But again, I found it a positive thing. Hope you're able to as well, or that you find a suitable alternate perspective.

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  2. Your writing was beautiful. I was completely enthralled by the story, I wondered if it was real for a second. But it was. Thank you for blogging Jills.

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  3. growing up is such a weird feeling. I go back and forth between feeling so excited to be leaving & growing up, and wanting to stay far away from any sort of change.

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  4. Just a side note, life may be a revolving door and love comes and goes but sometimes (never happening more than once), it pulls you out by the hand into a sparkling hotel of wonder and complicated joy or the strict lines of a bank, into an alley that may be built to hide you in the gutter or onto an avenue of surprise and adventures amongst the hidden beauty. Love is a gamble but if you watch closely as you swing around, you'll be able to pick out which hand is the right one. Just don't let your compartment get too crowded- you might not see it when it comes.

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  5. Honestly, I would not have said it any differently myself.
    Every day, We ponder What the hell we're going to do in the spans of our small existences.
    We make plans.
    We change them.
    Then we think about ourselves in ten or twenty years saying, "Wow. I can't believe I thought/said that..."
    *props to proving that future self wrong.

    -Sam.

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  6. This was so good it gave me the Jills.

    Like "chills" except Jills. Pretty great, huh? Yes. It is.

    I'll try to post a less worthless comment later on when it's not exam week. Godspeed.

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  7. Oh my gosh. I love all these comments.
    Tuna.... That was breath taking.
    Sam... I know, there's just so much pressure to figure things out.
    Christopher: hah, some people do call me Jills, but you get brownie points for cleverness. Good luck with finals.
    Katie: yeah, it's strange. Like being in limbo between two universes.
    Sara: oh gosh, that you. Yes, it wasnt made up, although I sprinkled a lot more poetry into it that was really present, admittedly.
    Ash: it is jarring, like waking up confused in the middle of the night.

    Thanks y'all. I missed everyone SO much.

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  8. Doing alright, could always be better. Snow is amazing and makes hot chocolate all the better =) But every snowball thrown is like a shooting star missed. But that's life. Can't wait for break, last week. That's all I'm looking forward to right now, Christmas can come later, I'm happy to wait. Currently ripping through the HP books so we can marathon the movies on Christmas (they're good and all, I just didn't believe that before =P). Just plowin through exams to see what wonderland awaits.

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  9. I think growing up is one those things that I struggle with. Not because I want to go back, but because "back" is so vague for me. I commiserate with your remark that you've never been the "epitome of normalcy," but I think I extended it further. As a child, I didn't connect with other children, so I can't say I ever felt like a "child." Extrapolate that to every year of my youth thus far, and notice how "transitioning" to the the next stage becomes lost in "transitioning from what?".

    I think it's interesting that in only a couple of years, you consider yourself so opposite to what you were. I'm curious to know if you attribute that change to anything in particular. Like you, I find myself putting people only three years younger than I in an entirely separate category from my own, and I even say, "Imagine how they'll change in a couple years."

    Even still, I try to enlighten said younger folk, but they look at me like I have three heads. Why they think they'll be the same person they are today for forever is beyond me. But I wonder if we could give a reason aside from "growing up," that then it wouldn't be such an alien idea to them.

    Just some thoughts provoked from your thoughts. ASLO, sorry I'm so late to the party.

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  10. You write so amazingly well - it's captivating. And everything you say is so true! Beautiful post.

    Also, I think I'm commenting from my beauty blog, not the normal one! Oops. :P

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"Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole"
_Adam Duritz

I love hearing things that aren't my own pathetic echoes.