Growing Up
There were stupid things out there, telling people that the process of growing up was growing out of things. Cold, dreary, cynical messages from left and right stating that growing up was somehow about failure. Once stepping into the shoes of adulthood, one had to let go of dreams and imagination. To no longer believe in magic. That wonder was only for children because their heads were in the clouds since they had no responsibilities: no bills to pay, no deadlines to achieve, no children to raise, no one to disappoint.
Just the same as finally outgrowing fairytales and make-believe, falling out of love was just part of growing up.
The comforting sound of the repetitive knife on the chopping board helped set the rhythm of her setting the table. Her mother's dark hair curtained around her face, only her voice appeared through the obfuscation.
"You're just getting started, dear," she said simply.
Pursing pink lips in confusion, she asked respectfully, "Sorry?"
"Is it practical at all to keep going with this? You're already stressed out, physically and emotionally tired. And you're not even finished studying yet," her mother remarked in concern. "You have so many things on the side and -"
"Mom, I'm okay," she stated coolly, with a quiet but steadfast determination.
The knife was placed carefully on the tiles, as if to instigate the beginning of a long mature conversation on realistic objectives. "I'm just worried that you're going to wear yourself thin. That you're just going to get tired and then disappointed. You have so much promise. I know college will make you more successful." It was strange then to face someone who seemed like the older version of herself, looking through her with disappointment and worry etched on those features.
"Mom, I'll make my own way," she answered plainly. No doubts, no second guesses. "I'll still go to college."
"But it's just second on your priority list." There was a sigh, as if of fears for the future that they couldn't even see yet. This was the concern of a mother attempting to hold her child from what the world would inevitably cause.
"I'm going to play, mom." And she would go through to the finals, travel the world, make it through every single practice. With sweat, blood and tears. The thing about playing the game, even if the aim was to win, was to simply be able to go through the experience. Living wasn't living by playing it safe. Going through disappointment and failure was a part of life. Every mistake was made as a process of learning. It was about developing.
The calluses on her fingers were battle scars. Every injury on her pulled extensor arm muscles were a medal of her perseverance. If she failed, she would stand up to continue fighting for a chance to shine. Growing up was not about giving up on silly little dreams. Growing up was simply strategizing, organizing, making a step by step direction on how to move up to finally catch the ever fleeting little bubbles that were dreams. If they popped, at least for a moment one had the chance to hold it in one's hands.
Her silly dreams were hers.
Belief was for the feeble-minded and the overly young and naïve. Those who didn't have the chance to see their beliefs shatter before them. The two friends she had with her snorted. One even said that they just didn't think she would be clueless enough to believe in something like this.
Perhaps it was about being eternally wide-eyed that made her look for something to believe in. But standing by something that one believed in wasn't about being stupid and impressionable. It was hard. One had to be strong, to be adult enough to face the challenges of people who questioned your intelligence and your sanity just because of your belief in a higher order. Not everyone wanted to respect beliefs. Someone else always felt the need to be confrontational about it. To make fun of what you believed in because their beliefs were more superior, truer or more realistic than yours.
Growing up wasn't the destruction of belief. Regardless of that common saying, seeing is actually the death of believing. After all when one finally saw, there was no need for believing. It was just there. It was okay to believe. It was okay not to. When there were no set answers, trying to find one's way was an acknowledgment of one's fallibility. It was an ubiquitous state of existence.
Even when she'd finally found out the truth about that particular organization, she didn't quite stop looking for something to believe in. It was all a continuous process, trying to find one's purpose in life or comprehending one's reason for existence or blindly fumbling for the road to travel on, which light to follow.
Growing up was just the realization that belief was something that you needed to revel in, unashamed, forever faithful. In the face of a perpetually judgmental yet unfair world, being grown up needed strength for your right to believe. To protect the integrity of your individuality and your expression of being, if belief was inherently ingrained into it. So be it.
"Look, about last time? I wasn't making fun of you, you know," he said awkwardly, while it was just the two of them alone. Scratching through his thick whorls of tawny brown hair apologetically, he looked to the side in embarrassment. "I guess what I was trying to say is that it's… just not my thing?"
"We don't all have to believe in the same things," she responded peacefully.
"No," he conceded, nodding in the kind of rare self-effacing move that could warm even the coldest heart. And she had far from a heart that was like that.
The leaves falling from the trees just around them looked positively poetic. They were surrounded in silence, in peace. In haven. It was odd to be walking in the park in the dark but it was the best in their situation. Less intrusions. These were moments that she felt wrapped in something and made her feel deeply spiritual. The sinking sun bleeding orange on the horizon, fighting futilely against the blanketing sleeping darkness. The natural wonderment of her surroundings, things she had seen and things she had yet to see. These were what made her believe.
Winds whispered around them, rustling the leaves, making music with silence. Wrapping her arms around his arm, she sunk her forehead into his sleeve.
"They're still evil though -" her hand connected on his chest, "Ow!" They walked for a while as he picked the leaves that had stuck on his bangs as she listened to the sound of his heart beating not far from where her head rested. "But they're people. And people do that." When she raised her head slightly to stare in front of them, she realized the sun had set. The world was encased in the cloak of night. It was so beautiful. "There's nothing wrong with looking for something to believe in."
Growing up was accepting that people differed in beliefs, in preferences, in ideas and way of existence. There was no right or wrong in living, it was an inherently personal experience. What worked for one person didn't for another. The imposition of one's ideas of what was better on another person against their will, breeching their very right to live, was the only constant wrong. One simply had to stumble into knowledge.
Sometimes just to stumble. Just like they did, because they weren't paying attention to the change of the road underneath them. So they laughed for no reason whatsoever.
Throughout the rest of the night they discussed, argued and debated about what they believed was right about politics on their world as well as the alien ones, then something as menial as which sports teams were best. Each one's opinions didn't take much sway of the other and they weren't that bothered by it. They continued on with their disagreements until the point that he had to drive her back home and drop her off.
From what she had seen in more cynical, less fairytale-style types of fiction, growing up meant the destruction of things as silly as young love. It was the acceptance that idealistic concepts of puppy love - that condescending term people had the habit of abusing around younger people who were in love in that cutesy, naïve way that the older generation apparently didn't experience. It was used with such spite, dripping with the deepest hurt of people who receive the first stab of heartbreak in a big way.
The statistics of modern society was high in divorce rates. More and more people were experiencing disappointment and failure rather than the much coveted romantic happy ending. It made it that much easier to conclude that success stories were rare. One in a million. That it was just another rite of passage into adulthood to fall in love then crash and burn.
Her father did not like him. It wasn't the sort of overprotective, natural father response of no one deserved his precious little princess. Her father really did not like him. There were many causes, deep and reasonable. In a way that her mother's concerns about her future career were absolutely reasonable. The most important of which was that this boy was never there. In a situation where his very connection with his daughter was enough to make her a free-for-all target to the many enemies that hated him. She was in danger because of their association and he couldn't be there to protect her. It was a double-edged sword of a complaint.
Sitting across from her father on the table, it didn't really make her feel like an equal adult speaking with him despite her age. She still felt like his little girl. It made her seem young and vulnerable, and she hated that sensation. Despite the fact that her father repeatedly told her that this conversation was an adult one, where they were simply here to discuss the practicality of her choices.
It was like she had her life on rewind lately. Maybe this was some kind of déjà vu, where people questioned her realistic expectations over and over like a broken record. At some point she should tape her responses to avoid having to repeat herself.
"He came here to ask for you. He didn't know where you were," her dad said in that conversational tone that was filled with underlying implications and wasn't really just conversational after all. There were strings of words silently attached, they hung in the air expecting to be answered without being asked.
She looked across to where her mother sat, who simply ate and didn't really have anything to add.
That was when she decided that the tablecloth, with its tacky floral design, was the most interesting thing on the dinner table. "There was a -" an enemy? An old friend? A broken-hearted person who barely existed amongst a chorus of a hive of desires? "- someone pretending to be me." Her voice was quiet. There were times when the dinner table was just like that. Hushed speaking, weighted with seriousness.
"He didn't know it wasn't you?" her father asked incredulously. A sentence loaded with questions of how well they really knew each other to even warrant staying in something so evidently miserable for her. Questions about their relationship again being used as a fodder, a battlefront, for an enemy attack. And also, cheating or something probably figured into that question too. She knew her father to understand what he really said despite not saying everything.
"It was very convincing," she responded simply.
There was a minute punctuation while they continued with food. Regardless of how short the silence was, it was uncomfortably tense. "Enough that it's okay for you?" Questions of selling herself short, of conceding to something that made her seem less than important and not worthy of acknowledgment. Suggestions of being blinded by something as idealistic and fluffy-headed as puppy love to disregard something like that. And the many, many other things. The concerns of a father where his daughter was not being valued enough.
Forgetting that this was her choice. And hers alone.
Growing up was not about caving and breaking at the knees: to abandon dreams, to no longer look for a source of belief, nor about losing love. It involved the realization that love was encased in many troubles, so one had to face it with conviction and with great dedication. With commitment. With loyalty. Love was not for the easily bruised, for the ones whose attentions swayed this way and that.
Growing up was knowing that love involved holding the other person's hand when the world glistened with joy and when the world burned with hurt. It was laughing together cuddled up on the couch and arguing about paying the mortgage. People didn't get to choose what was realistic, what was best, what was appropriate for others. They certainly weren't allowed to choose who others should be with. Regardless of how close they were to the person they were suggesting ideas to. Growing up was always choosing one's own way, it was an advantage and a curse. No one else to blame because you were your own responsibility.
"It's okay for me. What's okay for us is between us," she said simply in her eternally quiet and calm voice. A tone of someone who had decided that this was not something she considered up for discussion; of someone with authority over her own life.
An adult.
Her father looked at her for what seemed like the longest time. Then nodded. Through the rest of dinner, their mealtime conversation involved things that happened over their day, about current events and the wonderful taste of her mother's cooking. She was left alone over the things she had drawn the line on. They enjoyed their time together as a family much better now that it was established that she was growing up. And they could leave well enough alone.
You shut your mouth
How can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
- How Soon is Now by The Smiths