What made this evident this year was the gradual loss of many of our family traditions. As we all grow up and create our own lives and our own families so far removed from the families of our home, we lose a lot of what we once did and had. I think I see this especially because I'm the youngest. There's no holding on to these things for anyone younger than me. They're just gone.
In most instances, I don't mind. One example is our Christmas tree. My brother, mom and I have had a tradition of putting up our tree with all of our childhood ornaments on it every year. It is truly a hideous tree. There are homemade ornaments and ornaments that came in cereal boxes that somehow took on sentimental meanings. There are ornaments marking random events in our lives such as a musical I was in at the age of 8 and my brother's first Christmas. (He was born in November so he has a million baby's first Christmas ornaments while I have none, having been born in February. This is a fact that bred pretty extreme jealousy in me in my younger years.)
We always made an evening of decorating the tree. We would play Christmas music and put an excessive amount of lights on the tree and it was fun. We even did it last year when I was only home for a little over a week.
This year it just didn't happen. My mom had put up a pretty tree instead and was willing to take it down to let us put up ours, but I didn't even really want to. It made me a little sad, like I was leaving a little piece of me behind.
It's a weird place to be in life. I feel like I'm in between lives. My childhood life: the constancy of it, family and friends and the place I grew up in. And eventually my adult life: career and family, friends and a home. I don't really have either of those right now. At least not in any constant way. My old traditions are fading and, unlike my older siblings, I don't have new traditions to replace them yet. It doesn't actually bother me, it's just a weird place to be.
I spent years and years hating the feeling of inexperience and childhood. I wanted to be grown up, I wanted to be respected. I wanted to know it all. I'm happy to grow up. I'm happy to have the sense of self that age brings, to feel my life take on direction, to leave behind the mood swings and insecurity of adolescence, to trust in my place in this world and in the lives of the people around me. I realize I still have a lot to learn and a lot of growing to do, but I'm enjoying figuring it all out.
Despite all of this, there is the littlest piece of me that is scared to leave behind the irresponsibility of youth. I have complete responsibility over my life, a fact that I mostly love. My parents could probably tell you how much I have fought to control every piece of my life for a long time now. There was never really telling me to do anything I didn't want to or stopping me from doing something that I wanted to do, not that they sought to do that too much. Even so, it's a little scary. More exciting, but a little scary.
I think it's just the transition that has me scared. Something about this one feels a little more serious. It feels a little more like settling. It's that fact that's so scary. Nothing scares me more than the fear that I'll wake up in 20 years and be dissatisfied with my life, feel like I haven't done all the things I wanted to do. I want to travel the world, see and do everything that I possibly can, but I also want roots, deep friendships, a real and settled life. It's a balance I haven't remotely figured out how to strike yet. But it's what I desire.
So I guess I'm not as grown up as I think, not quite as settled as I envision myself. But, man, I want it all. Is that too much to ask? I hope not.
On to KC, ready to see what life brings...
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