The Year I Was Supposed to Grow Up

We only have a few traditions here at A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferrett. (1) Being awesome. (2) Playing Christmas music in December. And (3) Writing a year-end recap of my life. At the end of each year, I like to reflect on some of the major themes and currents in my life, as well as some of the major events. And as 2011 comes to a close, I think that this last year was theoretically one when I was meant to enter adult life. I'll let you decide if I succeeded.

One way in which adulthood crept up on me this year is that all my good friends started getting married. In fact, that's how the year started, when last January 1st, I was the best man for my friend Ryan's wedding in Idaho. And recently, I was the best man again when my friend Charlie was married in Indiana. (Women talk about being "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." I guess I'm always a best man, never a....man?). Through all of this, I did discover how good I look in a tux. It's out of control. I should wear one every day. It's kind of an odd feeling when your best friends all start getting married and becoming domestic and watching the evening news. Adulthood is so domestic. But I do really like visiting friends when they have wives who are willing to give me baked goods.

In May, I donned my goofy cap and blue dress and walked across the stage to receive my college degree. Graduating college is an exciting time, of course, but it's also kind of sad. You gain calligraphic piece of paper but lose a home. I loved my time at Ozark and often wish that I was still there (you can read my ode to my alma mater here.) What's even more depressing, though, is that Ryan once read my a passage from a book on Christian marriage that said that if you graduate Bible college single, your chances of finding a wife decrease drastically. Again, that's why I need to wear a tuxedo around.

May 22nd became one of the more distressing days I have experienced in a long time. I remember browsing facebook and seeing a status update from a friend in Joplin, Missouri saying that he was in Walmart and that it had been locked down because of a tornado warning. Those things happen in the midwest, so I didn't think of it too much. Then I got a call from another friend telling me that the tornado was a bad one, and I began to see news reports showing the chaos that was left in the wake of the twister that ripped through the middle of a city I love. Now, I'm not going to pretend that this event was as impacting for me as it was for those who were there and lost loved ones or houses. But even so, it's a difficult to see a place that you lived for five years torn to bits. So continue to remember and pray for Joplin. The picture below is the satellite image that you can see on googlemaps, and you can see the brown stretch moving from west to east where the tornado went through.

In August, I moved away to a mythical land--Cincinnati, Ohio. This has brought with it a number of different challenges. Paying for rent and utilities. Cooking some and trying not to set my kitchen on fire in the process. It's like I have real responsibilities or something. It's funny. People might spend a long time dreaming about the day when they move out on their own, ready to carve their own path in the world. But it's really not all it's cracked up to be. I miss the days of having other people cook for me and clean up after me. And even though I have all these new responsibilities, I don't really feel like a true adult. It's like I'm playing house or something, and I worry about being "found out"--that someone will discover that I'm just a kid who really has no idea what the crap he's doing.

So maybe adulthood is more than I've imagined it before. Growing up, I looked at my parents and thought, "Man, there must be some point in life when you just 'get it.' When the world makes sense, and you always know the right thing to do, and you have all the answers." But if that's how it works, I'm certainly not there. I think it's more likely that we never really reach the end of our development. We're are people who are just trying to find our way through life, from the time we're born till we die. There is never a moment when someone gives you a certificate and says, "You're an adult now." We grow into it.

At the end of these kinds of posts, I like to write a little something that looks forward to what's going to be happening in the next year. But this year...I really don't know. Right now, it looks like it'll be more of the same...hanging out, going to school, watching Netflix, eating frozen pizzas.

What about you? What have been the highlights of your year? What are you looking forward to in the next?