Growing up is hard to do

I promise that not all of my post titles will be bad puns off of oldies songs. Just some.

I've been grappling a lot lately with issues of age; particularly this concept of "adult." I realize that this crisis is nothing new or unique to me and people smarter than me have made entire careers in psychology out of studying just this sort of thing, but I do find my particular blend of young and old to be especially puzzling.

I've always been a bit of an old soul. Not to the extent of my good friend, Rob, who we've been able to picture in a rocking chair with a pipe, a snifter of brandy, and a family-size bag of butterscotch disks (classic old-man candy) since we were 15, but in the way that I've generally always gotten on better with folks 1, 5, 10, 20+ years my senior. Even though I might not always know what they're talking about, I understand them, and they certainly understand me better than the bulk of my peers do. It's a phenomenon I'm currently experiencing, not for the first time and certainly not for the last.

But on the other hand... I don't feel like I've entirely earned my 23 years, either. I still have childish moments in thought and in action, and I abhor the idea of squashing the inherent joy of those moments in favor of erecting the facade of adulthood. And for some reason, I continue to see myself as somehow smaller (physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.) than true adults. Am I really about to be made responsible for the education and general well-being of over 100 6th graders? And wait... I own a car and rent an apartment and make my own dinners? I'm older than the speaker in "Theme for English B" now? Friends are getting engaged and talking about finding "the one" in non-hypotheticals and looking for jobs with benefits... When did all of this happen? Last time I checked, I still get excited about free candy.

So you see, I'm caught in the middle (cue Jimmy Eat World circa junior high) and I'm trying desperately to reconcile the long-established trajectory of my hopes and dreams with the here and now. Arthur Miller would say I'm setting myself up for tragedy and that I'm experiencing "the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world." It remains to be seen whether my end will be tragic, comic, or more likely tragicomic, but I have certainly connected with this and other sections of "Tragedy and the Common Man" more than most of the American Literature II students I've cajoled into writing about it have.

Anyway... (I warned you, I like to ramble)

This was supposed to be a quick introduction to a poem previously written, because adult responsibilities are calling and I figured I could easily use the space to debut some pieces that had only seen limited release while I try to wrap up the semester. Since I started this post over two hours ago... it looks like that idea is shot. But, I'll still share the poem with just a bit more introduction:

I wrote this toward the beginning of my internship based on one of our creative writing experiments - write an epistle to a future self. I wrote to the me of 2020. While the words are still true, the driving sentiment behind them has already evolved and I'm not sure this poem would have come out of who I am now, a mere two months later. Boy, they sure grow up fast.

2020-10

Do forget the giant crickets,
but not the craphole rooms they infiltrated.
They represent your humility.

Do forget the burgeoning loan balances,
but not how you accrued them.
They demonstrate your interest.

Do forget the selfish bastards,
but not how they made you feel.
They pale in comparison.

Do forget the failing grades,
but not the kids who earned them.
They teach you more than you can teach them.

Do forget the Lean Cuisines,
but not the lounges where you ate them.
They inspire and frustrate you daily.

Remember this advice.
It has given you everything.


February 25, 2010