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Growing Up Is Easy. Maturity’s the Hard Part.
“She’s so mature for her age.”
The older woman beamed at my mother as she said it. My cheek still bore the imprint of her kiss, and my face flushed with pride.
She wasn’t the first or (nearly the) last adult to say this about me as a kid. Being called responsible, mature, smart were the earliest (and only) compliments I got.
I wasn’t mature. I was quiet. There’s a difference.
That quiet still shows up today, but it’s not nearly as cute. Not anymore.
Burying emotions. Dishonesty. Passive-Aggressiveness. No Boundaries.
Could I sit here and blame isolation, loneliness, childhood trauma, anxiety, depression?
Sure.
But growth is nothing if I don’t dig past easy-to-use excuses. Like most of us who grew up straddling barefoot childhood summers and the advent of the internet exploding into our lives, I’m carefully curated authentic online.
I ‘hate’ it, but I can’t deny it. I’m honest to a point. Real but not too real. Genuine but not raw. We’re all telling stories about who we are.
Let’s strip away the masks. Here are mine.
I’d rather be a gnat in a glass of whiskey than be thought of as rude. I keep secrets out of…
