It's the first day of February, and my Christmas tree is still up.
Ironically, this is helping me to realize that somewhere along the way through 2013, I started to become a grown-up. Why? Because it's actually starting to really bother me that it's still there. Don't let my comments of "Why take it down if it's still looking healthy and green?" fool you: it may have been true last year, but this time around I'm saying that to avoid admitting the dreadful truth to myself:
I'm actually really, truly, undoubtedly, unavoidably, becoming an adult.
And what's even scarier to admit is that it isn't actually as bad as I always believed it would be.
I spent the entirety of my life vehemently denying that I would ever grow up, claiming everything from "I can just stay like this forever and it's fine," to "being a grown-up is boring and burdensome."
And don't even get me started on using the word "woman" to describe myself....eeeesh! That's like a curse word, in my vocabulary!
But something about turning 25 last April (how annoyingly cliché) triggered that "thing" that I always scoffingly denied would ever be triggered in me, and I found myself waking up one morning with the unavoidable knowledge that I wasn't a little girl, anymore...and maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought.
I see people the same age as me, or around the same age, who seem to have their whole lives figured out according to what the unwritten rules of society say you should do/have done by this stage of life, and to be honest, instead of making me jealous, it has always made me want to vomit; people I went to high school with buying houses, having babies, settled into a job that they undoubtedly plan to stay at until they croak. All the more reason to stay a kid, forever! That life is so booooooooooring!
While I know there's something intrinsically purposeful to why I've always felt that way, I'm beginning to see that a lot of that perception was based in fear; Fear that if I grow up, I'm going to inevitably become all the things that I hate.
It's been a process, but what God has begun to show me this past year is that growing up does not need to look like the status quo. It's not equivalent to a white-picket fence, or wearing stuffy clothing, or living and dying in a 9 to 5 that leaves no room to actually live.
"Growing up" is realizing and acting on your potential to make your dreams a reality.
...doesn't sound all that awful, anymore.
In the past year, I took a bunch of scary "big girl" steps that put me out of my comfort zone and at times, made me feel more overwhelmed and directionless than ever before. Not only that, but I'm sure that from the perspective of an outsider, it looked completely immature and foolish. Yet, it's led me to a place where I am being less childish than I've ever been, and taking risks that I never thought I'd take, all in the name of believing that I have the potential to live out the dreams God has placed in my heart. And I gotta admit, it's pretty exciting!
I believe that God is up to something in the church, and it's all about balance. Balance between two extremes, between the Type-A and the Type-B, between the Martha and the Mary.
Because more than anything, I think that true maturity is found in balancing the very necessary two extremes. And if Jesus is coming back for a bride who is a woman and not a girl, then you bet I want to be a grown-up!
In light of this, suddenly buying myself some makeup and trading in loud colorful patterns for a black leather jacket (courtesty of my wonderful husband who jokes that I won't be shopping at Limited Too, anymore) feels less like dress-up and more like me, and believing that I have what it takes to start and sustain my own business is more of a truth than a laughable fantasy. Little by little I'm making peace with those "pesky Type-A traits," that I hated so much, because I realize that without them, I'll have no framework to live out my dreams (who can travel the world at the drop of a hat if they never have clean laundry ready to pack?).
So maybe I will finally take down my Christmas tree tomorrow, or maybe I'll find some other excuse to leave it for another time. All I know is that luckily, God delights in the process of helping me grow up, and if it remains Christmas in that corner of my living room a little longer, at least I'm finding myself saying what my mother would say if she knew it was still up in February.
That's gotta count for something, right?
