growing up and growing old

all of a sudden, during my bus ride home yesterday, i felt

grown up.

i cannot describe it.

i only know that the feeling wasn’t so dreadful.

it was as though i was at the movies, watching myself,

my present 24+ year old self.

perhaps it’s the fatigue,

the late nights,

the espresso filled veins of mine.

and they say grown ups don’t have fun – they work themselves to death.

i used to shudder at that precise thought.

am i that obsessive? am i that old?

no

i beg to differ.

there is a difference between growing up and growing old.

sorry but i would like to think that i’m just growing into the next season of my life. i am not ageing, not in the mental sense. my body might soon show signs of old age, in the next few decades or so. i might lose that glow and that spring in my step. i might i might i might. but i won’t focus on that.

i’m very happy in fact. happy with my current place in life. seated comfortably in my mid-2os. maybe i will think differently next year. or maybe i don’t want to think about it at all.

maybe i don’t really want to grow up. maybe i don’t want to be jaded and i don’t want to stop hoping for the best that life has to offer. correct me if i’m wrong but i just cannot help but notice tiny streaks of resignation in the voices of the elder and senior. it’s as though they regret not living life when they could, not being as hopeful as they should have been.

well, as Meredith from Grey’s Anatomy once said,

 ”I’ve heard that it’s possible to grow up, I’ve just never met anyone who’s actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don’t go our way. We whisper secrets with our best friend, in the dark. We look for comfort where we can find it. And we hope against all logic, against all experience, like children, we never give up hope.”

i don’t suppose that we ever really grow up.

and i think the latest movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button proves that point.

I for one, cannot stop thinking about this quote – it’s from the postcard Button wrote to his daughter:

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

what we need, really,

is pure courage to run forth towards our goals and dreams,

not matter how hard it seems. to grow upwards, forwards, as we go through life.

if Benjamin Button can grow younger as the days go by,

why can’t we?

age, is afterall, just a bloody

number.

doubts

we have them all the time.

it’s that split second or wrenching days and months of doubt. you either doubt yourself or others or situations or God.

whether self-doubt or just plain doubt, they’re all the same.

D-O-U-B-T.

the lack of certainty.

the lack of concrete and the presence of thin air.

the absence of faith and the presence of distrust.

but i think that the worse type of doubt is self-doubt.

i have been down that road and back

and it really is disheartening. doubt brings about discord. that much i know. when i doubt myself, i get very displeased,

with myself.

my mind fights itself

the thoughts wrestle.

when that happens, i stop,

i look upwards

i feel God,

and my soul soars.

thank you Lord for making it possible to trust myself even when doubts arise.