growing up

i watched a very funny movie tonight--just what i thought i would be doing in coming down to oklahoma. no but staying with johnny b. tonight and he went off to play a soccer game so tyler and i watched "death at a funeral." it is hilarious and i would recommend it if you care for a laugh.

i wanted to write something tonight--and earlier it seems i couldn't really find the words to express how i'm feeling right now. so i watched the movie thinking i would set all that aside, or maybe that i would catch something in the movie itself. of course, it being a comedy i wasn't exactly thinking it would strike these emotions. but oddly enough it just so happened that perhaps it did.

in a film full of self-absorbed people (british comedy) the final eulogy was sort of denouncing all of that. how it relates to the film isn't all that important, but one thing was said--and that was that in the end you have to grow up all by yourself. you are released by your parents and the people around you are in this case too preoccupied with themselves or in other cases just simply limited in what they can really give you. in the end, yes, you have to do the work yourself.

i think what i'm coming to grips with is just that this process takes so long. will i ever feel grown up? yeah, i'm sure i will. i think the hard part is just knowing that i have to get there alone. even if i was married i would still have to get there myself, in some ways it might even be harder. but it doesn't feel that way. it is hard to be alone, certainly it is. and i would probably prefer it different--but while i have it i want to do what i can with it to grow into myself so much more. maybe that sounds kind of lame but that's about the best i can figure right now.

does everyone feel this way about being grown up? or did i just miss some developmental maturity memo that you all got?

some of it might just be this stage of life. but some of it certainly is myself and where i'm at right now. i keep coming back to something i read once that said the main longing of adolescence is belonging and the main longing of adulthood is intimacy. and i feel a tension between those two in me. maybe as i long for the latter more that means i am growing up. but it's for some reason hard to feel that way in this stage of life if you are still single. maybe that's just me.

how can i battle the feeling of being alone? not lonely as much as just feeling alone, out on this island in manhattan with a few people who have been great--but leaving behind so much in the rest of life. i know i'm not alone, but so often it is hard to feel that. nouwen says sometimes we need those human hands to convey that belonging and intimacy to us. but right now i guess i can try to learn to feel that from God. maybe in some ways i feel more grown up with God and i feel more of an adolescent in life. maybe. or just an unfulfilled adult in that sense. though that longing feels very adolescent. i don't know.

i think that's all i got at the moment. i apologize for the somewhat jumbled thoughts if you feel like you wasted your time reading them all :). i don't know if i can express how, but somehow this has been helpful for me.