Growing up

I've been having recent conversations with a friend about the logistics of growing up. Y'know, what happens when you  have to actually pay for your own stuff. Like not living with five other roommates. The reality of growing up...the stuff that we all know is impending, but if we put it out of sight/out of mind long enough, we'll hopefully escape its grasps. Yet we're inexplicably enchanted by the thought.

I know I'm elated at the thought of having my own little apartment in a somewhat "classy" area of town, coming home to what is just mine. I love roommates, I love friends, and I love family. But the thought of having something that is solely mine... thrills me. I want to work in Boston, New York, or somewhere back east. Have my own little apartment that I can decorate how I want because it's mine and mine alone. (no *other* has entered the future yet). I know it'll be clean because that's how I like it. When I have five other roommates it's all too easy to forget what is my mess and what is not. But when the place is my own, I'll know. And it'll be so fun for a while-to watch movies, curled up in a blanket. I'll lounge about in my bathrobe because that's how I like it. And no one can give me odd looks. When I want to have friends over and have some fun, I can. But when I want to come home and curl up on the couch to read, I can do so in silence.

If you haven't noticed, the future is heavy on my mind. I realized this week that I can, and WILL, graduate this next April. April 2012. My "perfect" graduation date. It's happening. I am still in awe, that, at the age of 21, I'll have my bachelor's degree. My heart is still mission-bound. It perplexes me. I want to go, I want to serve, I want to learn. I'll come back more spiritually and overall mature. I just can't believe it, that's all.

In doing the Miss Uintah Basin pageant this last weekend, I realized how... kinda mature I am. Not in a way that I'm touting my awesomeness, but that I didn't realize how different I am compared to most people. I love learning. I love life. I feel like it's too short to just "get by." I wish a seventh sense existed to represent how it feels to be so wholly in love with life. Words are an injustice.

The image I've had of my future shifts with every person I meet, and it scares me. Maybe I'm not right all the time...