Grown Ups?
When, exactly, did this happen?
Just today, I met a new boss....another one...the next one. And he asked about our stories, so I told him mine. And somewhere in the recounting of my years up to this point, career and otherwise, I wondered where it was, exactly, that I had become an adult. I've done things. Not necessarily exciting things or normal things. I've gotten jobs, I've made decisions, I have paid dues...sometimes many times over, I've worked hard. And now, just now, I'm at the point of realizing that it might be time to be thinking about going the distance. Lab experiments have a shortened time to cure; it's time to think about life.
This might be privilege or just a generational thing...but I haven't thought much about life after school, which for me will end in very nearly my fourth decade. In some ways, this is definitely arrested development. In other ways, though, I feel like this is just another path. Yes, it's different. Yes, I don't need kids of my own. Yes, I haven't felt the real pull of "settling down." And yes, everyday that I make a choice that is different from someone else's I wonder...and I worry. What will become of me? Eliza Dolittle says that, so famously, in "My Fair Lady." But what will become of me?
And then I think that the conversation I just had with a friend of mine about politics is what dinner conversation used to be. In fact, my commitment to him and his commitment to me is very similar to those that so many dinner tables have seen. But it's different; and that's fine. I have connections. I have love. I have respect. I have frustrations and joys. All in ways so different than expected.
And maybe that's exactly this stage of life. But it's my first time here...and I just don't know.
Just today, I met a new boss....another one...the next one. And he asked about our stories, so I told him mine. And somewhere in the recounting of my years up to this point, career and otherwise, I wondered where it was, exactly, that I had become an adult. I've done things. Not necessarily exciting things or normal things. I've gotten jobs, I've made decisions, I have paid dues...sometimes many times over, I've worked hard. And now, just now, I'm at the point of realizing that it might be time to be thinking about going the distance. Lab experiments have a shortened time to cure; it's time to think about life.
This might be privilege or just a generational thing...but I haven't thought much about life after school, which for me will end in very nearly my fourth decade. In some ways, this is definitely arrested development. In other ways, though, I feel like this is just another path. Yes, it's different. Yes, I don't need kids of my own. Yes, I haven't felt the real pull of "settling down." And yes, everyday that I make a choice that is different from someone else's I wonder...and I worry. What will become of me? Eliza Dolittle says that, so famously, in "My Fair Lady." But what will become of me?
And then I think that the conversation I just had with a friend of mine about politics is what dinner conversation used to be. In fact, my commitment to him and his commitment to me is very similar to those that so many dinner tables have seen. But it's different; and that's fine. I have connections. I have love. I have respect. I have frustrations and joys. All in ways so different than expected.
And maybe that's exactly this stage of life. But it's my first time here...and I just don't know.
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