Feeling like more and more of an adult lately and it feels strange, but not like I'm playing at something, like feeling like an adult always has, which is the strangest part. I went out for my birthday last night with people from my job and spent most of the earlier part of the evening talking to this one lady who in her thirties. We talk a lot at work. We get along. Then one of the therapists came up to us and was like "I didn't realize...you guys are close, aren't you?" I guess I hadn't realized either. I guess we haven't spent that much time hanging out, but I feel really comfortable talking to her, and I genuinely enjoy her company, and we have similar views on a lot of things. She's my friend. She's in her thirties, and she's my friend. That's a strange realization-- but mostly what's strange about it is that it hadn't occured to me that it was strange. I didn't think about the ages at all. Even a year ago when I started this job I was really focused on how I was the youngest person there by a long shot. Now I feel like it doesn't matter. I know part of that is getting used to the people, but part of it is me I think. I feel less aware of differences like that. I knew that was going to happen eventually, but it snuck up on me I guess.
My dad invited Aram and I home for Passover next weekend, and we're going. The weekend after we're taking our first weekend away together-- nothing huge, just going to a cabin in a PA state park for the weekend, but it feels very grown-up. But the thing that's really getting me is that I know a year, two years ago if we had done this, I would have felt (silly) so much that I was playing dress-up, playing adult, and while it is exciting to take these weekend trips as a couple and it does feel grown-up, what's really striking me is how appropriate it feels. How not pretend it feels. It's just something we're doing, and I feel like it's my place to do it. Not like I'm playing at something-- not really anymore. I feel, lately, like my life is more mine than it ever has been before since I graduated college. College was the last time I felt this comfortable with my life, and I mean the middle of college-- the whole last year was a strange time, feeling out of place with the thing ending, not ready, feeling like I wasn't supposed to be done with college because I had never really thought about what came after. I mean, I suppose I thought about it, but in a daydreamy, rambling, what-if sort of way. Never about what was really going to happen.
With these new feelings of comfort and ownership of my age and what I am doing and where I am in my life right now (god I kind of hate that phrase, "where I am in my life," it sounds pulled straight from the jacket of a fucking life coach book, doesn't it? That's what I mean though and I can't think of another way to put it...) come new feelings about the van trip Aram and I are taking. Until recently every time I thought about the trip I would feel excited, but also really nervous, and honestly quite skeptical (which I secretly tend to be all the time, though not necessarily negative at all, just...I don't know. Careful, I guess.) about it. By that I mean that I felt almost certain that something would go wrong, or somehow something would get in the way of the trip working out, or we wouldn't be able to pack everything up in time, or the van would break, or I wouldn't save any money, or etc etc etc all the things that happen in my head. I think this is because this trip felt like a dream or a story that I told myself, and not something that was really going to happen. But very recently I have started to feel differently; it is going to happen, and I don't feel as though we will be playing at anything or pretending, it is a trip we are going to take and it is the time in my life when I will be living in a van and traveling and hiking and if the van breaks we'll deal with it. And we will pack everything up, and I will give notice at my job (I have a lot of feelings and nervousness about that which I will probably write a whole separate thing about later), and we will go. I am not nervous anymore. I know this is going to happen, this thing that I want to do, and I feel so...christ, what's the word. Calm! I feel calm about it.
Anyone who knows me knows I am never calm about nearly anything that involves planning. I am a nervous wreck. But I feel calm about this now. We are going to take this trip, and I know whatever it is, it will be an experience I will be glad I had. I have no idea what it's going to be like, but I am confident that it is the right thing to do right now. More than ever I feel that I really, truly own my life at this moment. It's an odd feeling.
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