Be warned. but not afraid.

Nobody tells you that growing up is hard.

But it is.

We sort of wander through life when we’re younger – we grow. We develop. We change.

We make friends and we lose friends. And that kind of hurts. But good things seem to follow the bad and we have a path to follow so we keep breathing, keep walking and keep trodding, one foot in front of the other.

Elementary school ends and high school begins. A new set of changes. New situations, circumstances and pressures. New stereotypes to grapple with and relationships to navigate. Things change, but they’re changing in everyone our age, so we walk forward. Perhaps with some trepidation, but we do it knowing that it’s the next step in our life and we walk it with our peers.

When I finished high school, going to university was as easy a decision as going to high school. It wasn’t something that required intense discernment. I certainly thought about the program I would enter and the career it would lead me to, but the actual going to university was easy. So it was for 98% of my graduating class. Faced again by so many unknowns, but assured that we would all face them, there was comfort in the collective unknown.

But when university ends – so do all the givens.

The path is no longer straight and the road is no longer marked.

Everyone born in 1987 has ceased to go where I am going and where they are going, I am not.
Here marks the end of the easy and the beginning of the hard. Here we find the necessity to grow up and to grow apart. Faced again with a myriad of unknowns, the collective unknown is no more. This is now my unknown. It is my choice. It is mine to discover, to face and to embrace. If it’s hard, it’s no longer hard for my entire birth year – it’s just me, and the hard.

And it is hard.

My temptation is to steer clear of this individual growing, choosing and changing. My temptation is to cling to what I know and to find others who will do the same. Because what lies ahead could be anything. And if it doesn’t work for me, it’s now just me who’s made a mistake. And if it’s challenging, I may be the only one challenged. And if I feel alone or scared or unsure, I am no longer certain that I am in good company.

But if I give in to this temptation, if I refuse to move forward and continue to move sideways, I fail.

I fail to become the one I am created to be.

So I choose to walk forward. And I feel a sense of ‘my own’ as I walk this solitary path. For it is on this path that I will discover the plans that have been laid out for me. It is on this journey of mine that I will hope and seek to discover the why behind who I am.

But I will not be deterred by the hard.
I just warn you that is.