How to Grow Up

When I was younger, growing up was always something I wanted to do. Five was a great year because I started kindergarten. My 10^th birthday was a big deal because I was double digits, 11 was huge because I became a big sister, my 15^th birthday was important because I got my learner's permit, 18 was a big deal because then I was legally an adult, 20 was notable because I had been alive for 2 decades.

I turn 21 in 3 weeks. At 21, I can legally drink, I can adopt a child, I can hold an airplane license, I can supervise the driving of a minor, and plenty more. But truthfully, I don’t want to turn 21. Truthfully, adulthood looks a lot less like freedom, and a whole lot more like fear. I have one year of college left, and I apply to grad schools this summer. My first instinct is to make a fist and hold onto this year with all I have in me. To squeeze it so tight that bits slip through the spaces between my fingers and my nails bite into my palm. You want the truth? I am terrified.

Adulthood looks a lot like making decisions you don’t feel old enough or wise enough to make. It looks a lot like weekly emotional breakdowns in the shower, like ID badges, hospital scrubs, household chores, and still trying to find time to do something I genuinely enjoy every week. It looks like no time to listen to music that I love, or read the books that are piled 16 high on my bedside table. It looks a lot like promises to do things with friends that never actually make it on the calendar, and it looks like hours and hours on your feet and smiles and beeping while working at the hospital. It looks like a corner of the family garage piled high with your college belongings that you have to search through about every 2 weeks to find something you falsely didn’t think you’d need until the fall. It looks a lot like messy bedrooms and cluttered countertops and a lot of good intentions that never quite make it to actions. It looks like having an older brother who is graduated and gone. It looks like 3 different wedding invitations magnetized to the fridge, and one friend with a baby on the way. It looks a whole lot like multiple cups of coffee, and rolling over in the morning because your dreams feel like a safe haven from the chaos that is now your life. Like I said, terrifying.

Growing up isn’t what I expected. How exactly am I supposed to understand that I feel like a stranger in my hometown? I don’t know how to explain to my friends who ask me what’s wrong that I don’t feel like we are connected anymore. How do you explain to someone that 3 years of college in another part of the state changes you? That it becomes your home? How do I deal with the fact that all my friends at home, just graduated and are moving on with their lives in different places? How do I come to terms with the fact that I feel lost? How can I no longer feel like I belong?

Grad school applications are a control freak’s worst nightmare. Especially an extroverted control freak. The PT application doesn’t open for another month and while I can read over the application until my eyes are red, I can’t start it. There are countless things on the to-do list that hasn’t even managed to leave my brain and find a place on paper yet. Making a list of the schools I am going to apply to, reconnecting with people for reference letters, making sure all my observation hours are documented, and all the while having to deal with the overwhelming burden that this thing I am making lists for: it’s the rest of my life.

Grad school is exciting and undeniably worth it, but a majority of me can’t come to terms with the fact that I am going to be rejected. Likely multiple times from different schools. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that failure, at least in this area of my life, is an option. It’s hard to admit to yourself that several schools will likely deem you insufficient. Rejection isn't something that I have experienced a whole lot of. Academically I have always done well, and relationally I haven’t ever struggled. So how do I prepare myself for this stage of my life? The one where there is a large possibility that I won’t get into a good school right away? The reality that I may not be able to pursue my career the way I have planned.

How do you prepare yourself for rejection so that it doesn’t break you? How can I learn to let my fingers open and let time continue to fly?

I’ll be honest: I don’t know yet. That truth too, is difficult for me to voice.

Adulthood looks a lot like prayers from a worried heart for a peaceful heart, it looks like tears that are shed out of a fearful and insufficient woman, it looks like text messages from friends reminding me they are there for me. It looks like days where I feel emotionally distant and out of touch, and it looks like days where I read my Bible with an anxious and stubborn heart. Somedays adulthood looks like me ignoring my Bible all-together, sometimes for days or weeks in a row, and then it always looks like Sarah breaking, sobbing, and crawling back towards Grace. Adulthood looks like worship songs sung at the top of my lungs at stop lights, and reading a book when it rains.

But mostly, growing up looks like family movie nights, and dinner together around the dining room table, it looks like coloring in the living room floor and towels on the bathroom counter. It sounds like feet pattering down the hallway to wake me in the morning, and the sound of my sister’s laughter. And above all the hourly reminders that Grace has carried me this far and Grace will carry me forward. Even though I may not know where that is, when it is, or what it looks like.

Forward is enough.