Growing Up: [The Growth Chronicles – Part VI]

In shortly over 2 years, if I’m fortunate enough and blessed to see the day, I will be 30 years old. Times like these genuinely make me reflect on what kind of person I want to be? Where do I want to be? What kind of lifestyle do I want live? Clinging onto the joys and thrills of yesterday, while realizing they no longer bring me as much joy and thrill. Experiencing new and different things with different perspectives than previously had. Growing up.

Always a very difficult and uneasy process, but for me, a continuous and necessary one. In order to value and embrace the pleasures and pains of life in the now and for the future, I must continuously grow and break away from the yesterday. Taking life lessons and experiences with me for the next adventures and tribulations, always moving forward, but embracing the now. Admittedly, I have no problem coming to terms with the constant changes of life, I actually am excited about the potential of various changes, but that doesn’t make the “now” process any easier.

Frankly, the continuous “now” and development process is a jezebel. Who really likes to beat themselves up, confront themselves and challenge themselves to be better? It’s not very fun, and I am very much my own worst critic. Actually, I am downright brutal to myself at times, but it makes me, well me. It’s easy to fall off the road less traveled for the forged roads paved by others and I too hop off for the easier way, or common routes at times. I am human and most assuredly still have a few more dances with the devil. Yet, I have not only myself to keep me centered, I have some very strong and great people that support and love me.

Over the years, the best part of growing up for me has been better understanding this love and its power. For years I had very veiled and misguided interpretations of love and its ability. I did not value its potential to empower others, to change worlds, to save lives even. Ironically enough, it was this dismissal of love’s power that actually enables me to appreciate it better today. I am constantly amazed at how blessed I am to have the people that I have in my life today. I guess as I’m growing up, the quantity of my intimate circles are happily smaller but the quality is significantly larger and stronger. I still have so much to learn on this front and life has so many more lessons for me, hopefully I can share and teach as well as I learn.

The silver lining behind aging is, whether I see it at times or not, I’m not alone. We’re all dealing with our own internal crucibles and we’re all aging; some more gracefully, with acceptance and joy, others more reluctantly as the inevitability of life is more evident with each passing year. The twist is that while we all are aging, we all may not be growing up. So however we approach life, one thing we can all agree on is that life goes fast. Live It. Love It.

I ain’t as as good as I’m gonna get, but I’m better than I used to be.