graduation and growing up.

I am starting a completely new chapter of my life.  Or, well, it's started and I just haven't really accepted it yet.  Or I'm in this limbo where I have no idea where I'm going to work, which has an impact on just about every other facet of my life.  So, I was sitting at my laptop this morning and thinking about something productive I could do with my time.  I thought, "I have always wanted to really keep up on a blog.  But what would I blog about?  I really can't be all that interesting."  I have decided, after much contemplation, that I don't care if I'm not that interesting to that many people.  I'm just going to go for it because I have nothing better to do right at this very moment.  What will I talk about?  I will talk about my life, news, books, movies, TV, gadgets I want/got/feel like I reallyreallyreally need but probably don't.  That being said, I hope you really enjoy what I have to offer.

I was having a conversation with a friend about what it means to be a grown-up and how you know if you're a grown up.  His theory was that if you can look back about three years and not think you were a complete idiot, then you're a grown up.  That's slightly simplified (but only slightly), and I didn't write down exact quotes, so I'm sorry if you read this and feel like I butchered your theory.  And then I watched a video that seemed incredibly timely:

Hank says it really well.  There are no hard lines, nothing concrete to define what is or isn't an adult, and you can still pay your taxes, have good credit, have a job, have a social life, and be silly.  I don't want to lose my silliness or nerdiness.  I want to watch my TV shows, cry at them, read lots of books, play lots of video games, and still manage to pay my bills and generally have my crap together enough to buy a house and have nice things like a good car and be able to take a vacation every now and again (and be able to afford my technology habit).  It has been important to me to do all of those things that keep me me and not get bogged down by everything else that has been going on.  This has been difficult, but I think that so far I've managed to find a good balance and think that I have a good hold on things.  I think about things from multiple perspectives and try to balance logic with emotion when I am making my decisions.  My point is that I will probably never know, and I will probably never just call myself an adult without cringing just a little, but not because I think being an adult is bad.  To be human is to be fluid and is contextual; in some situations I will probably be way more adult than the people I'm with, and in other situations, I will probably regress to childhood depending on what triggers me.  

Since I am presently in a transitional stage of my life, I have also been considering my support system and how I still fit into the world I have created for myself.  What still works, and what doesn't work?  What do I need to change?  I feel like since things are in flux, I have the ability to make things into what I want them to be (to a certain extent).  This has been really important to me.  However, I have also lost a sense of control over my life and I like, which has provided me with a lot of anxiety.  I would like to say that I can go with the flow, but the unknown is just really freaking me out.  This is not to say that I am not still an adaptable human being; I feel like I have shown my adaptability and resiliency through many of the experiences I have had throughout my life.  I just have to keep in mind that those are very different concepts.  For years and years now, I have been wanting my life to settle down.  I want to live in one place for longer than a year, I want to have a job, I want people who are permanent fixtures in my life.  My life up until this point has not really lent itself to that; people are constantly moving away and things are always changing.  I accept the change, but I wonder if it is ever going to slow down.  People will always come and go, homes will always come and go, jobs will always come and go.  Am I naive to think that the change will slow down at all?  I haven't decided yet.  Even if some of the changes slow down, there will be other changes and transitions to go through.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.