So this piece is a bit more personal, not something I typically share, but I was inspired and I think there will be those who can learn from these words. So, here goes. Hope you like it.
How do you know that you're an adult? How do you look yourself in the mirror each day and trust your own decisions? Is it when you're 18? Is it when you're 19 and can legally drink? Is it 21 when the prefrontal cortex thing they keep warning you about stops growing? Are you an adult when people say that you're one or when you decide that you're one? How do you decide?
I for one, am horrible at making decisions. I am crippled by the weight of their unknown consequences. Fear of the unknown keeps me hesitating. Fear if the unknown makes me doubt my own authority over myself.
How do you trust yourself? How do you make that leap of faith into the future? How do you know who you're supposed to be or how you're supposed to get there?
I don't know what to do with my life. I feel lost, trapped. I have a list of all these things...but I don't know how to implement my dreams, how to keep them from crumbling before my very eyes when I stumble on a roadblock.
How do you know if it's just a block and not a sign to stop going that way?
How. Do. You. Know?
Easy answer? You don't.
Hard answer? No one does. No one can.
We're all stumbling through this life like newborn fawns, unsure of our legs. Unsure of our thoughts, our decisions, our futures. No one has mastered the art of adulting, you just get to a point in life where you're really good at pretending you are. Adults are the best actors. We should all have a Hollywood star, but we can't fool the one person who matters: ourselves. And that's what makes life hard.
We fall for our own lies for a times, but we eventually wake back up, startled by something we were not prepared for. And the doubt creeps back in under the cracks in our foundation and tears us asunder piece by piece. We turn to others for guidance, for salvation, but they know no more than we. They might be days away from their own destruction, painfully unaware until it's much too late.
And yet...
It won't be the first time. They have risen from the depths of their own graves time and time again, looking back at a tombstone that reads, "Not this time." They pick up the pieces and write a new script. They drag themselves back onto the stage. Where they get this willpower from is anyone's guess, but they always find it.
They get up and perform again.
And so will you.
Until there is no one left to remember your voice.
How do you know if you're an adult?
When you refuse to let the curtains close.