This Maturity Thing

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Black History Celebration at my elementary school alma mater. Its something I participated in....let's see....every year I went to school there. It's a pageant of sorts where there are speeches, recitations, and songs by the children. In the back, my mom was helping with a fund-raising bake sale and I felt compelled to help. As they prepared, one of the mothers spoke of how a sister institution had used Facebook to help raise money. Here is where my closeness with my parents and my need to educate them backfires. I just explained Facebook a couple of times but now she offered my name for assistance. I quietly hoped it was a dream and kept pouring cups of punch diligently. But that mom chatted me up intermittently for the rest of the night, talking about the possibilities for such a drive.

She was pretty pleasant too and also asked about my history with the institution. When she asked me what year I had graduated, that's when it hit me. June will mark 15 years since I left the 8th grade. My goodness. She then asked "So how's adulthood treating you?" What a question. It's only recently I've started to accept and desired to embrace this adulthood, maturity.

But its taken me this long to start to get comfortable with myself. Last weekend, I busied myself about the island of Manhattan mostly going to events associated with Armory Art Week. And it was just a simple reminder of what I used to like to do. I'm not sure where I lost it, that spark to discover, to appreciate. And not just the arts, but life. All of a sudden I'm back to reading real articles and (gasp!) real books. Why was I not challenging myself all this time?

Maybe because it would be acknowledging that I was capable of more. Maybe its because I knew it would be more work and who wants more work. And not being certain of how much one is worth makes every decision that much more scary. But now these childish ways I dwelled in are starting to get tiresome. And nothing happens if you don't try. And really this isn't that hard. One step at a time and everything will work out.

But all this mind stimulation has been wonderful and this is what one of the underrated aspects of adulthood is. At this stage, this is where you can start to put everything together. It's true it can get confusing as all Hades out there. Sometimes I feel like I am in the center of a full speed centrifuge. But its also exciting. And right now I am ill equipped to enjoy everything it has to offer. I won't narrow this to a year. This time in my life is the time to truly examine the things that I enjoy and discover the things I will enjoy. It's about being responsible and thinking about the long term. The here and now is crazy but something positive can be drawn out of the chaos.

I need to be more sharing though. I think returning to this is a beginning to that. I need to be less afraid of sharing myself. For some reason I think I used to be ashamed of some of my interests or practices, who knows why. But I am who I am. But honestly I think I was just overthinking the whole ordeal. I'm going out more. I'm reconnecting. This hermit crap has got to be over. Going out with my sister twice illustrated that. There is so much to experience that I have been missing out on.

I might include old blogs I meant to write. I was writing in my absence but I just never felt so comfortable in my ideas. Once again I am not sure where all this anxiety derived from but I'm so glad I have begun to shake it off. Those will be tagged something clever once I think of it.

I anticipate a wonderful journey, though it may be arduous and even more confusing at times. I have tough decisions to make but I plan to enjoy myself along the way in this growth process.