I’m a grown-up.
The process started when I turned 25. For years I was mistaken for an intern at least once a week on the elevator and suddenly it stopped. I felt different and looked relatively different but I was still insecure and uncertain about things.
For an inexplicable reason in the past couple weeks I’ve started to feel different again but in a good way. I’m more confident about what I like and what I want. I feel like I have an identity and know where I belong.
The sense of belonging is especially nice. I spent so long (first 4 pictures and the 19 before) feeling very alone and like I would always be alone. Danny changed me in a lot of ways and helped me be a person I wanted to be but now it’s more than that.
The first year of marriage was really hard. Harder than I could ever admit at the time. I didn’t expect it to difficult because we’d been living together for so long but it was. I’d go through period of doubt and question what I wanted. Thankfully, year two has been a breeze. We tried a lot of things last year to figure out what worked for us financially, with our families, at home and with each other. The work has paid off because now I feel comfortable. I’m relaxed and can breathe. I find more time to think and be reflective and looking back I think about how fun even the hard times were.
As everyone knows I love our apartment. It has all the decorative elements I want. Looking at pictures the other day I was reminded of our other apartment when we had no furniture and slept in a twin bed (and that’s being generous it was really a child’s bed). That apartment was also always messy and now our house rarely is.
It’s little things but they add up. Maybe it’s more than being grown-up; perhaps it’s happiness. The feeling of pure contentment. I prefer to think of it as maturity; however, because I’m fatalistic and fear that good and bad must even out and I don’t want to think about anything negative.
So for the moment I will embrace my joy and call it maturity.
CarrieDaway 