“We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.” May Lamberton Becker

I'm starting to do a lot more on my own, I think. I'm becoming more self-reliant. I think. I'm not exactly sure. I'm doing things like making dinner more often, or stopping on my way home from work to get groceries. I bake. I'm currently attempting to make potato bread in the bread machine. I've been doing my own laundry for as long as I can remember. I don't do my own finances yet, but that's a bit over my head at this point. I take my own initiative to make appointments (or I will once I get back to school). I wanted to buy my own planner rather than wait for my parents to suggest to me that I get one.

I'm not sure if this is me actually growing up, or if it's me catching up to where I should be at this age. I'm not quite sure. I'm really excited to have pseudo-apartment style living this year. I feel more adult going into this year than I have for any other academic year. I feel a new dedication to my classes as well as the student organizations I intend on joining. That may be because I now have responsibilities in two of those clubs. Either way, I am feel like a part of a bigger picture. This feels like what adult life might feel like once I'm not in school anymore.

I'm also petrified that I'll get my own place some day and fall flat on my face and not know what to do. The things I enjoy are not things that will be helpful when I have to make my first rent payment. I also feel like I'm getting a little far ahead of myself here. It is a lifestyle choice of mine to enjoy the life I have while I have it while not worrying excessively about the future. I'll learn how to pay the bills when it's my responsibility to pay the bills. I'm getting a fish. That will be enough responsibility for a while.

I don't want to get burned out, but I also need to become a lot more independent and responsible. I am excited to schedule in work-out time with my roommate, Sarah, this term. I'm excited to have meetings and to be a relatively important piece of those meetings. I might go back to my grandma's for Thanksgiving without either of my parents. I want to live a full life, being myself, growing in to my self. It feels like a tricky balance: responsibility and development combined with having the fun a soon-to-be 19 year old should have. I know that I can do both: it's just doing it at the right pace that might become a bit of a challenge.