Being a Grown Up

i feel like we are trained as children to anticipate adulthood. i mean, thats what everything is working toward, right? you go to kindergarten just to make it to first grade which will eventually take you to high school. Only after we get that much needed high school diploma do we accept the reality that the world says we need a college degree. Boom, 4 more years in school, if not more. And what is all the schooling for? a job. a career. a source of income.

some people declare one an adult at age 18. you can vote. watch R rated movies. buy cigerettes. i mean, yes, by all means, declare adulthood. but youre not really really an adult until 21. when people take you more serious. and you can legally drink. which apparently is only suitable for the "adults". but what do you know...there are still things you have to be 25 or older to do. like rent a car. but even to someone who is 45, a 22 year old fresh out of college might not resemble this thing we call an adult, this figure who is responsible enough to live alone and have a household. did you know that in some African villages a boy is deemed responsible enough to be head of a household after he has experienced his first wet dream? i mean, hello world, what is it with giving out responsbility like its beads on mardi gras!

everything in life seems to look only to the next thing. the next step to being older or greater or more adult.

well let me tell you. i'm not a fan. i'm not a fan of this big ideal of adulthood ive been apparently working toward since i was 5.

here i find myself. 22. a recent college graduate. with a degree im passionate about but guess what, i need MORE schooling to do anything in that field. and i currently have 18 girls in my care. 18 high school juniors and seniors who have left their home high schools to enter a more rigorous high school setting to better themselves. and when theyre not in class, they are in my care.

at what point did i become responsible or grown up enough that the social well being of young, moldable minds would be trusted into my care between the hours of 3pm and 8am?

Scary. Thats what this is.

But then, you get small glimmers of what this COULD look like. The students who want to learn from the life i have lived. who will have hard times but will accept comfort amidst the rocky road that is boarding school. because i know that rocky road well. i travelled down it. 6 years ago.

This is a weird time. The last four years of my life have been about me. lets just be honest. i went to the college I chose. Majored in something I loved. Made the friends I liked. And did the things I chose to do. The decisions I made affected me.*

Did you get the memo? This year is not about me.

It's funny; I didn't get that memo until the middle of summer. This year is about serving these girls. Loving these girls. Because they need it. If along the way I find some sparknotes that fill me in on how to be an adult, i will share. And if along the way, I find some parts of myself that have been hiding for a while or that I didn't know existed, I will share those to.

I don't know so many things. But I DO know that my God is bigger than the things I can't see. And the things I think I have figured out...because usually, I'm wrong.

*now let me clear something up. in an about me section on a friends facebook page, they wrote: it's not. May i declare now that is truly the cry of my heart. this life isnt about me. but in acceptance of my desires, i know me better than you do. and know that i have a tendency to make things about me, no matter how far from the truth i want that to be.