Oh, Grow Up

Go with me on this one...

When someone tells you to 'grow up' it is most often a request for you to stop doing something.  With me so far?  For instance, when my mother finds me playing with the box of Lego I found in my closet she says 'grow up,' but what she means is 'stop embarrassing me in front of my imaginary jury panel.'  What is wrong with the joy of creating something?  Even if it is a mismatched color attempt at a truck or a really freakin awesome fortress (two walls makes it a fortress, not a castle), why should I not occupy my time building?  Oh, right, I will be 'normal' and go spend my afternoon in front of a television watching Friends.  

I take a more... I donno, awkward teen drama view of this 'growing up' thing.  

Don't stop playing with Legos.  You will get boring.

Growing up is not, or perhaps should not be, a process by which you systematically give up on things that you enjoy.  It is the slow and often agonizing process in which you experience things that alter your personality. It is as simple as when you figure out that wearing sandals to the 4th of July BBQ where there will be loads of open flames is not a good idea or as complex as when you are daft enough to apply to a prestigious drama school thousands of miles from home.  The sad part of this process is that it often tells you that to become normal you have to give up on things like hopes and dreams and fantasies and replace them with cold hard 'facts of life.'  You stop taking risks and even entertaining those daft ideas because now that you are all grown up, you know that risks sometimes carry consequences and you wouldn't want anything to shake your comfortable, albeit boring, life.

As we 'grow up' we build this wall of confidence and self-assurance around us.  I am more well-adjusted if my wall is higher than yours.  Within that wall are all the things we need to live a comfortable life.  A job that is well within my abilities where I get praise for my well-doings.  There is a decent house in a decent suburb with a dog.  I am a woman, so there should be a couple kids in there and a husband who my friends introduced me to and we 'just clicked.'  No need to risk anything by going outside the confidence wall.  The higher your wall is, the more convinced you are that you have it all and have no reason to want to see over the wall into the safety abandoned theme-park craziness that those of us who refuse to 'grow up' get to play in.

What is so wrong with scraping your knees a little?  Why can't adults climb a tree just for the sheer fun of it?  For the sense of kingship and accomplishment you get when you reach your goal?  Because 1.  we might fall and it would hurt and 2.  because someone might see us and judge us.

Pain and judgement.  Yeah, it is human to want to avoid those.  They suck.  Epically.

Except, you know that feeling when you shoot for something totally unreachable?  It is a feeling of exhilaration that cannot be matched by anything.  Well, maybe skydiving, but I haven't done that yet.  (Yet)  And then how much more do you appreciate it if you even graze the handhold of your goal?  

I have fallen on my face a lot.  Especially recently.  But that is okay.  Why not fail?  Why should I give up on my dreams, 'grow up' as they say, and move back to Oregon, get back with my ex, get married and become the good little lawyer's wife that everyone seems to expect me to be?  I shouldn't.  I should be where I am right now, sitting on my bed, single and typing to millions of people who will never read this, nor should even care.  But I am happy.  Happier than I have ever been in my life.  Because I jumped.  I didn't exactly land on my feet, but I would rather have a sprained ankle in Disneyland than perfect health in a box.  

I'm not growing up any time soon.  In fact, there is a tree right outside my flat block aching to be climbed.