Get Off the Track

Another Monday is upon us and I am already looking forward to the weekend. Not only do I get to have a three day weekend...Sunday is also my BIRTHDAY! Even though I am not little and don't really have birthday "parties" anymore, I still get really excited about birthdays. I'm turning twenty-five and I can't really believe it. I still feel like sixteen was just yesterday. Twenty-five feels like the age where you become a REAL adult. From 18-21, you are just an extended teenager...either living it up with a max amount of freedom and limited responsibility at college or you are figuring yourself out with the excuse of being young. From 21-24, most people have really just dipped their toes out of the nest and are still in the process of figuring out who they want to be and how they are going to get there. I feel like when you turn 25, you better get your crap together and start your game plan for your major life goals. 

There's a line from a song that says "Well you'd like to think you were invincible. Yeah weren't we all once before you felt loss for the first time." That line always really resonates with me. These past couple of years I have felt tremendous loss. Loss of  family members, loss of my nuclear family unit, loss of my childhood home, loss of close friends, etc. If you have never felt like you are free falling through space, consider yourself extremely lucky. 

One of the oddest things I have realized about growing up is how your perceptions of your family members change. I only had certain perceptions of people based on how they related directly to me.My parents were like the border tires on my go cart track. I could drive like hell but really I was just driving around in a loop. If I got to close to the border, they would just bump me back. I rarely had to think of them as individual people. I still have a hard time with it really. People often say, "At least your parents got divorced when you were grown up." I hate that.  It's like saying "At least so and so died when you were grown up." Your feelings are the same when you are five or forty-five. Those hard things don't get easier with age. One day your parents move all of the tires off your go cart track and tell you to get on the highway. And then you realize you are driving a crappy slow car with no protection trying to go 70 mph alongside semis. It's scary.


When I was little, my perception of my grandparents was endless hugs, blueberry muffins, summer vacations and endless spoiling. When I got older and my needs changed, these relationships didn't. I took notice of new aspects of personalities that I had never noticed before. I didn't need a blueberry muffin or someone to come and pick me up when I called them from time-out. I needed someone to ask me how I was doing and offer me support. I need the hug sometimes in a more figurative type of way. I have realized that a lot of my family has this quality of emotional stoicism. Let me tell you, I do not. I am like an emotional freight train. I have cried through at least three Thanksgiving dinners in the last five years while everyone looks at me nervously and tries to change the subject. As you grow up, you have to figure out how your relationships have to change. It's a very strange feeling.


Even though I still feel lost sometimes (okay a lot of the time), over these past two years I have had to figure out who I am by myself instead of in relation to my family. I have had to refocus my energy on what I want as an individual for my future. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want career wise, what things are really important to me ( fancy car or quality time?), and what is important to me in a life partner ( I don't want my future family to experience the heartache that I have). I have had to focus on goals for myself in order to set aside feelings of sadness and change that comes with growing up. I've had to invest in hope for the future.


And now less than a week away from my twenty-fifth birthday, I feel like I have finally accepted that I have to throw away the road map I've been following for twenty five years, draw my own and drive like hell.