birthday thoughts

When I look back on this week (you know, when I am REALLY old, like 40-wink, wink) I truly believe that it will live in infamy as one of the hardest weeks of my life. I saw the gruesome death of a very important friendship this week because of the actions of myself and someone I care about greatly. It’s funny how we can take the gifts that God gives us and allow human nature to completely destroy them. Baltimore has been hard for me and my life here has been greatly improved by the few friendships that I have, and to lose one of the ones that is most dear to my heart seems, at times, unbearable.

The other reason this week has been hard is that this wrenching experience has made me realize that an arch of growing adulthood has edged closer to completion. I’ve always wondered when I would finally feel like an adult, and I expect that there will be more “maturing moments” ahead, but getting up this morning on my birthday makes me realize that I have grown quite a bit since last year. The first time I ever really viewed myself as an adult was when I was in India and exposed to regular challenges in taking care of myself and watching out for my well being. As I came home, I wondered if my family would notice the change in me that I felt-that I matured into more of an adult. I don’t really know if anyone noticed, but I also feel that this week has had the same sort of effect. And imagine crammed 9 months of maturing into 5 days...It would leave anyone emotionally destroyed.

I can only hope that the next year will be more stable for me, and that there will not be so many wrenching experiences. I guess a lot has changed since my birthday last year: I was working in a coffee shop when I turned 23, a recent grad who was trying to decide on next steps and battling depression over the state of her life, who felt like a failure because of having to live in her mother’s home in a city that held no future for her. As I turn 24 I am living in a new city on a different side of the country, working in the field I dreamed of in college, and traveling to places for work I could only read about in the papers last year.

Despite the gains, part of me still feels that I should have accomplished more in my life by this age. Its not that I feel like a failure, I just worry that I haven’t done all that I can with the years that I have had. But I guess all we can do is the best we can...