Growing into Mellowness (blog)

When did you realize you were a grown up?


I think I realized this when I lived on my own for the first time. I joke with my father about this, but I remember running out of shampoo, as an example, and realizing that I would be the one to go buy it. This seems like a small thing, but taking care of myself made me realize that I was grown up now.


Also, I would say learning to mellow out about things in general was something I needed to do to grow up. Sometimes, I will lapse back to this, but I used to take things so seriously and everything seemed like it was the end of the world. I'm not saying I don't get upset now, but it's much easier to recover from crises now. It's just not worth it to get too worked up over things.


This may seem slightly off topic, but I'll mention it, because it has some relevance. I have read the first Twilight book (stay with me), and something about it bothered me, specifically the character of Bella. She didn't have the strength of character that I liked in my fictional heroes. The book was enjoyable enough, but I was still bothered by it. She lost all sense of herself and drifted through life after Edward left her and it bothered me. Recently it struck me why that was: she reminded me of myself at that age.


It's not my intention to write a defense of Twilight, but this was a little bit of an eye opener for me to realize that something in it resonated for me. I had times when I felt so depressed that I was suicidal. I was the teenager that thought my world was crashing down. Clearly, things would never get better. Looking back now, of course it doesn't seem that serious of a problem, but at the time it was. My feelings were for a variety of reasons, but a girl that I liked was involved. I still think that maybe it's not a good idea for teens to read about a couple who pledge to kill themselves if the other dies, but maybe I was being hard on young Bella. Maybe, just maybe, Bella's experience has verisimilitude because of its resemblance to the experience of a real teenager, specifically my own.

My life did get better, of course, and I've had such great experiences since then. If I had followed through on my thoughts, I would never have met all the wonderful people I have or had all of the experiences I've had. Maybe growing up means managing your problems, but that process is in continual refinement, so maybe we are continually growing up.

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.