Growing Up

This post is both easy and hard to write. It’s easy because it all comes so natural to me and is so real. But let me tell you, it’s also very hard because as I write I realize that even though some days I still feel like a little girl or I’m not sure when homemade salsa goes bad or if possibly living alone my senior year is a great idea or just a terrible thought out plan, that I am in fact growing up. My parents tell me all the time that I’m still learning, I’m growing up, I CAN figure things out on my own and most importantly things will work out.

I know how old I am, I’m 20. I haven’t been a teenager for roughly 4 months. I am the youngest of my friends. Everyone perceives 13, 18, 21, 30, and 40 the big birthdays. You’re finally a teenager, you can buy a lottery ticket, you can buy and drink alcohol legally, you’re really a grownup now, and finally you’re “middle aged” (a scary term apparently). My boyfriend turned 21 two weeks before I turned 20, a month later one of my best friends turned 21. On October 11^th, one of my friends I’ve known since I was 5 will turn 21 and after that a friend of mine that’s been my friend since we were in the nursery will turn 21 in December, a few days after Christmas. The First one to turn this crazy age didn’t seem to astonish me as much but now that there are so many happening so quickly, it’s kind of weirding me out to be honest. We are all actually growing up really fast. A friendship of 21 years, who else can say that? I’m proud I can.

This post isn’t just about age; it’s about how quickly time goes by. I have to have an internship before I graduate and I really wasn’t too worried about it until just the other day when I realized I only have one more summer before I graduate, now I’m on a time crunch. My mom was asking me about jobs and internships when I went home to visit. She mentioned going to a different state to intern with some different company and a different scenery, it sounded like a great idea until I realized this upcoming summer is the last summer I KNOW all of my friends will be in Richmond. After May, of 2017 that could all change. One my best friends already has a job offer when she graduates, that is just crazy to me. I forget I’m a junior sometimes, I guess I just think of myself as a college student with more work than the previous years. I am over halfway through my college experience and then I will begin the real world.

Life goes fast my friends. It’s exciting and scary and thrilling all at the same time. Birthdays may not be a huge deal, but they represent age and sometimes they represent how long you’ve known someone. Take a moment to think about that. Life is precious, fast, exciting, scary, and stressful and any other adjective you can think of. Enjoy it.

“I said, Days should speak, and multitude of year should teach wisdom.” Job 32:7