Think back.
Think all the way back to the very beginning as far as you can remember. Did you ever think you would be here?
Did you ever think you would be where you are today? I know I didn’t.
For some reason I was always a practical child. I never remember not thinking deeply about choices and consequences and right from wrong. To me things always had a practical rhyme or reason. To me there was a reason for everything. Except getting older.
Well okay, not getting older but I suppose people’s yearning to get older. That I never understood.
One of my favorite movies as a child was Peter Pan, mostly because I felt like Wendy (and also because I thought Peter was kinda hot…but that’s a different analysis of my psyche for a different day). I felt like Wendy because I was the older sister and I knew that one day I was going to have to leave the Nursery and I knew deep down in my heart that, that was a thing I never wanted to do. I never wanted to grow up.
For some reason I knew, just like Wendy, that with a growing age there was a growing amount of responsibilities. I knew that people were going to count on me more and that there would be less fun and that I was going to have to live my life under the microscope of other people and their arbitrary rules more and I was not about it. I never wanted to grow up.
And yet, year after year, I would wake up on my birthday resolute to have fun and celebrate the passing of time and the maturation of my person and personhood because, if I do have to be a year older why not?
So, here I am 30 years old and resolute to celebrate in the best way I can because a milestone is a milestone. Am I happy? No. Am I content with where I am? No. Was growing up exactly what I thought it would be as a third grader when I sat in the lunch room and listened to all the younger siblings in my class postulate the advantages of being grown (again another talk for another day)? Yes. Yes it is. But in this I have hope…
Every day I have hope in tomorrow. Every day I work towards peace, love, and growth. Every day I tell my favorites I love them. Every day I praise Him for the unknown. I do all of this because the future is on it’s way and there is nothing that I can do to stop it. I can however, find the beauty in today and nurture it as way to quell the ugliness of being a grown.
Plus, when you concentrate on making the most of each day you realize that you never truly have to rid yourself of the joy of the Nursery, growing up is only as big as you make it, and happiness is only a little past the second star on the right and straight on ’til morning away.
Welcome Home Love 