Some people are lucky enough to grow out of adolesence. I was not. My first trip into the adult world was not my driver's lisence or my college dorm. It was a call from the hospital, and it came when I was not ready. My teenager problems were wiped away, and I was in the real world. It's not the death, it's the dying that gets to you. I was 16 years old and facing the process of death for someone I loved.
Just recently I am beginning to see how important this was. I am just starting to understand how easy it could have been to lose everything, how close I was. I could have fallen apart that year, I could have broken into a million pieces. But I didn't. It was more than a tragedy to my family, it was a tragedy to my faith. It was a year-long attack on everything I had ever believed in.
I could have lost it. I could be a fragment of the person I am now; it has happened to so many people. I could be wandering instead of living. I could be cynical instead of hopeful. I could be defeated.
But I'm not. I survived. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and it grew me up really fast. I am only 17, and I may be clueless, but I am not a child, or an adolesent. I know adult fear and adult despair and adult pain. But I also know adult courage and adult hope and adult truth. I have fought and won adult battles. I am a dangerous 17 year old.
You know those great stories where a kid is stranded on an island or lost in a forest and has to take care of themselves? They learn how to provide for themselves, and how to survive. Even after many moments of peril, they beat the odds, they stay alive. Eventually, the are found and brought back home. But nothing is the same. They sleep in their own beds and meet up with old friends, but it doesn't fit anymore. They have to live in a child-world, but they don't belong to it.
I graduated a long time ago, but I still have to show up for class. Sometimes I almost wish I could go back to the way I was before my island; it would be easier. I don't belong here anymore.
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3 comments:
Rachel: You're in the starting gate, ears alert for the starting gun. You're going to shoot out of their to a race created for your arena. You know not to jump the gun. You know not to disqualify yourself. You've learned to wait. And to trust.
Very cool.
Couldn't be said better.
Hahaha. I'm learning patience, Mrs. Dale. It's not exactly my favorite thing.
And Mel. Only a couple of months until the AP's. We can make that, right?
*sigh*
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