a little reflection upon my 20th dance around the sun

I feel like as you get older, you certainly acquire more responsibility, you grow more ambitious, a lot more adventurous, and in a sense, more free. I was recently thinking about how life in early secondary school vs how it is in university can be so distinct. Take summer for example; how many people can say that summer during school breaks as an early teen and summer as an early adult is absolutely the same?? It’s incredible that age is this gift that comes with new responsibilities and priorities and it’s something you have to get in line with as you grow.

From what I’ve learned, growth is not caring too much while simultaneously caring enough. In other words, re-arranging how much importance we attach to certain things. Growth sometimes means evolving how we respond to certain circumstances: personally, my version of that is trying to find the sun in everything, even if that’s not my initial reaction. I do this to make sense of certain situations because I find that clarity in a weird way, makes you feel better. I once met someone who embraced laughter and was chill in pretty much every circumstance. She encouraged me to see the ridiculousness of everything - If you think about it, some of us spend quite a bit of our time thinking and analyzing over and over again. I realized that we sometimes think or *overthink things into gravitas. Yes, there are obviously important things that exist but we can take the seriousness of these things to such an extreme that the sensation becomes a little ridiculous. At times, you look back and you can’t believe how slight whatever you were pressuring your mind about actually was, like an issue that you end up realizing was never an issue at all.

I was watching a show the other day where this girl accidentally farted while hanging out with her partner. She went to her friends and was mortified at the fact that she farted in front of this guy she’s been dating. She was extremely paranoid about it. You’re probably thinking the same thing I was when watching this scene - it’s human to fart, what was the fuss about, especially when the relationship was clearly going somewhere?! Luckily, another character in the show verbalized this opinion on my behalf. One of her friends deepened her concern by citing that the fart shows that ‘she’s human’. The real, ‘human’ version of herself being conveyed to someone she’s dating scared her because it showed that the relationship was getting serious. Up until then, it was a problem being 'too real' or imperfect.

Now, on to the reason I told you that story: growth is humanizing yourself. I’ve always been frustrated at the idea that we’re supposed to act or be some specific sort of way to fit in or forcefully stand out. In my opinion, it’s fine if you do that if you’re being yourself in the process - but, with the obsession of how we’re perceived, it almost feels like a part of yourself has to be hidden because people seem to be uninterested with being “too real”. I sometimes think to myself, what is “too real”? Why is that a thing? Why do we still put so much value on what people think? As you grow, you realize that so much time and effort has been invested in restricting yourself to fit into a certain frame, and you inevitably start to question that and choose if that’s the path you want to continue to take.

Lastly, growth is beautiful, it’s a blessing, and it’s something that shouldn’t be forced. When growth happens, be welcoming, be accepting, and be grateful.

Cheers,

C.