I guess I've found my answer. The thing that's been troubling me for seconds among minutes, hours beyond days, and for weeks that fill the months.
I'm afraid to grow up.
It has to be a natural thing, something that everyone fears. Why else would Peter Pan fly away to Never Never Land, and why else would there be adults that still act like children? Who actually really ever wants to step out on their own, and take control. Being a child is easy. All you have to do is look cute, and have someone around to take care of you.
I want to grow up, but wanting and being afraid to seem to collide. I want to be successful, have my own dog and be able to buy any size TV I want without worrying about the money, but I'm still afraid. I'm afraid that I'll blunder out there among those who've already found their success. That I'll trip, and biff it into a world of grown-updom that ins't fun, or worthwhile. That I won't make it, and be so far down that I won't even be able to fake it. That I'll be part of the 99% who blame everyone else for their failures, instead of being the 99% who made their life to their prior expectations.
It doesn't help that college is that awkward time where you aren't really a grown up, at least not to your parents, and especially not in reality of how you act. But seeing as you can be legally charged as one for your public drunkenness, or rowdy behavior, you are 'technically' defined as one. You live 'on your own' for extended periods of time, in the dorms, or apartments or houses, with Mom and Dad a phone call away in case you've got a question. It's got to be what a dog feels like. When it's attached to a leash.... but the leash isn't secured to anything besides the open air trailing behind it. At any moment, you can be hauled right back to childhood, where Momma makes you a sandwich and Dad helps you put your favorite movie in the VCR. Safety, yes. The real world? Only for those who live in their parents basements and sponge off of them until the day they die.
My parents already set the ground rules on that. To be honest, I would be disappointed in myself if there wasn't a day in the future where I could comfortably stand on my own two feet, supported by steady work and a successful path ahead of me. Someday, I'd like to be able to help out my parents as they help out me, and how they help out my grandparents. I can't do that if I'm using their money while living in the basement.
It's the getting there. The shouldering of the responsibility. The taking control of my life, and though being influenced by those who have opinions who I value, decide for my own.
Cause that what the key seems to be. To be an adult, I've got to buck up and just do it.
So yes. I'm afraid. Of many things that come along with the American Dream of Success (though mine is, as of now that is, lacking a husband and 2.5 children. A dog and a house with a picket fence could be nice though). But that's life. There is always going to be something challenging me, and making me re-evaluate the choices I've made, or will be making.
That's the way things go. So as much as I'm afraid, maybe it's time to just face the music. Cause as great as it would be for Peter Pan to sweep me off my feet, the only thing actually waiting for me is real life.
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