Day 194-196

If it was spring, I would take a picture of a rock and a hard place and put it here.... maybe with me squished between it. But instead it's snowy out so I'll give you this courtesy of Google images:

I feel like the age I'm at is a shitty one. Not for just me, but for anyone this age. This is the age where, for most people, real life becomes real. We are thrust into the world of grown-ups. We are grown up.

...And it is scary.

All of my friends are facing struggles: Ending long relationships. Getting married. Starting families. Buying houses. Applying for grad school. Graduating grad school. Moving. Moving across the country for a job. Watching their significant other move across the country without them. Trying to find a significant other. Getting sucked into monotonous jobs. Trying to find a new monotonous job to get sucked into.

We pay our own bills... if we are lucky sometimes our parents might pitch money our way. We have to get insurance, save for retirement, manage finances. Nobody is going to pick us up when we fall. And somehow we have to save for all of the expenses life throws at us.

My whole life up until now was scheduled. For 18 years of my life I was on school's schedule. They determined when I vacationed, when I worked, when I woke up, when I ate, and what I did with my free time. I no longer have that. I can work whatever job I want, whatever hours I want. I don't have to work at all if I don't want to...(but that isn't very realistic, and this is real life we are talking about here.)

And who do we have to rely on? Ourselves? We must be self-sufficient, reliable, and the dreaded word: mature.

But thank goodness for friends. We are all the same crappy age. We are all facing milestones in life and making decisions that could change our lives. When things are going bad we can lean on each other and help each other. We can learn from each others mistakes.

Somehow people reach the age 30. Somehow me and each of my friends will reach 30, then 40 and 50. It won't be easy, but we will figure out this whole 'being grown-up' thing. Over time maybe being grown-up will be less scary, and who knows, it may even be fun.

"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." ~Lois Wyse