I spent a lot of my childhood working on growing up.
I worked hard to exceed expectations and be responsible. I was the first child and the only son in a family where the parents did not think they could have any children. I grew up around more grownups than children, at least until I started going to school.
I was a serious child.
When I was a child, I was impatient to become a grownup. Grownups could do things that kids could not, and had conversations kids were not welcome to join.
Growing up apparently included spending a lot of time and effort learning things. Fortunately, I was good at learning things. I loved to read, and I learned things in school, at home, at church, and pretty much anywhere else I went.
Growing up takes a long time. Eventually, even after staying in school as long as possible, work replaced school as a place to learn and grow.
Then I realized something that came as a shock, that changed the way I understand growing up.
I saw all the expectations and responsibilities that had defined growing up for me, and I felt trapped. There was nowhere for me to go, no way for me to escape.
I realized that I did not even consider what I wanted to do; I just did what other people expected. I did not even know how to think about what I wanted.
I could not accept that was what it meant to be a grownup.
I began the work of growing up. It took a lot of hard work, and a lot of time. Slowly, gingerly, I began to emerge.
I continue to work on growing up, and I help other people work out how to be grownups.
How do you do the work of growing up?
Who is helping you work into your deeper grownup?
[Image by Cheryl DeWolfe]