grown woman
Been reading old diaries recently, as part of a time-consuming and annoying soul-searching process. Digging out dusty old journals from 2008 has been quite funny.
Firstly: my handwriting is absolutely appalling and no amount of stickers or doodles of flowers makes it better.
Secondly: I am not always honest in my old diaries.
Thirdly: my diaries are full of a lot of things. Memories. Happy moments. Rants. And the occasional sudden revelation that I have changed somehow.
Do you remember your secondary school years? Time seemed to stretch on, and on, and on. Years felt like decades (unlike now, where years seem to flash by like minutes). When I was fifteen, I legitimately thought that I was so different than I was at fourteen. Because a lot of growing had happened in 365 days.
So it continues into adulthood, according to my old diaries. I keep having these mini-revelations. At 20, I thought I couldn’t be further removed from a teenager. A lot had happened, after all. I was married! And therefore, absolutely a grown-up. (The fact that a mere one year ago I was an actual teenager seemed to have escaped me.)
Flash forward to 25. Working full-time, starting to think about having kids. And I am now, officially, a grown-up. A lot has changed in 5 years. And now I am pretty sure of who I am. The thought that I knew before is just silly.
And then forward to 30. I have had not one, but two babies. I am a mother. Everything has changed. I was such an idiot before (in my defense, everyone has the potential to be a bit of a dick in their twenties). Now I am 30, I am convinced of who I am. Absolutely. Really, I could not be more different than I was at 25.
And now I am here. 33 this year. Contemplating my next move now that my youngest is starting school in September. Noticing things that are missing, hunting out things in my life that don’t feel quite right and allowing myself to feel uncomfortable while I work out what to do about it (is this vague enough for you?). A lot seems to have changed in the last two years, but then again, the whole world seems to have shifted into something quite different than it used to be, so maybe that’s understandable.
I can feel that (God willing) this is just another beginning. Life is full of them. You grow and you develop and you unfurl, hopefully, starting over and over and over again. And I have gained many things in the last few years: self-esteem, critical thinking skills, hope, the ability to keep plants alive, body confidence, and over the past few months, insane multitasking skills. I have started to embrace the idea that I will never have the answers to the deepest mysteries in life and that is actually okay. I have grown. It’s a nice feeling. The sudden realisation that you’re settling into the person you’re meant to be.
And in a few years, I’ll look back and wonder how I ever thought I was done.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that to have unwavering confidence in who I am is perhaps a bit of a mistake. We change all the time. Life shapes us in ways that maybe we didn’t expect. I am confident that I work hard. I am confident that I am loved. I am confident that more sudden, unexpected shalom-type moments of peace will come when I least expect them.
We all change. In little increments. We use the old versions of ourselves like springboards to leap into the next bit. And every bit matters because our lives matter, all of it, even the stupid bits we can’t fathom in hindsight. We never stop changing because change is the only constant, and therefore there won’t really be a moment where we truly feel we have ‘arrived’.
But those little moments where you think ‘oh look! I’m a grown up!’ and you feel proud and happy and tired and older, but in a good way?
Those moments are pretty sweet. I’ll take them where I can get them.
