Growing up

I'm not saying anything profound here, just looking for an outlet, a place to say "OK life, I get it now".

Growing up, it's not the same as growing older. When I was a kid, I'd start a lot of sentences with "when I grow up". When I grow up I want to be a writer. When I grow up I'll stay out late and eat candy all the time. When I grow up I'll find out what doing "it" entails. What I really meant is "when I grow older".
Growing older is something that happens to all of us, pretty much at the same rate. We all hit puberty around age 10-14. Our brains finish developing in our mid 20s, our bodies begin to wear out in our 40s, this wearing out process continues until we are elderly, then someday our "growing older" becomes "passing".

Growing up though, is made up of experiences: the kind that leave your cheeks wet, your throat raw, your mind muddled, your expression bewildered.  Growing up is having your brother die, or your baby, or your mother or father. It's struggling through the heartbreak of divorce. It's a new diagnosis of breast cancer, bipolar disorder, infertility.  It's seeing that life has an uncontrollable element that happens to all of us. I look around at friends all the time and think "when the hell did we all get so grown up"? But I know.

When I was a kid I thought being a grown up was a qualitative thing: you were either a grown up or not a grown up. I see now that growing up is like growing older; it's not done until you are in the ground.