Hardest Part of Growing Up

Growing up. It's hard to fathom the difficulties that come with growing up as a child. I thought this was a good thing to include on the 30 things my kids should know about me list. While I think my life has been an incredible journey, it has been difficult as well. I think that the hardest part about growing up is the responsibility.

When you become an adult, the decisions you make have bigger consequences. There are bigger consequences about which job you choose, what you wear, how to spend your money, and even what you eat. I think knowing that if you mess up you are the only one who can clean up the mess is terrifying. I am not going to say that every decision that I have made as an adult has been a great one or even that I haven't had help when I screw up. With that being said, I couldn't expect a clean up crew for every mistake.

For example, when I was 18 and only a few months graduated from high school I decided to move away from home. And this was not to move into a dorm in college like I should have. This turned out to be the WORST decision of my life to date. After moving out, my life revolved around someone who was not worthy of such a huge honor. I dropped out of college, got a job (not a career), and began to struggle with finances. I was talked into taking out a large student loan to help pay someone else's bills along with the tuition I would pay for school I would end up quitting all with the promise that I would not have to pay the payments. To sum up a very long and agonizing story, this situation was a bad decision that I had to clean up because I was an adult. When I decided I was worthy of something better, I moved back in with my parents. My parents let me move in of course and helped me through some of the details of figuring out what to do next, but I had to put on my big girl pants and be the adult I was supposed to be.

While I do not regret the decisions I made in my past because they led me to where I am today, I hope to instill the value of thinking before you act in my children. I hope to spare them the struggles I had to endure and have them see the importance of furthering their education. I also hope to show them that relationships can wait until your life is where you want it to be headed to make sure that they are choosing a partner that will match them step for step, rather than holding them back or weighing them down. Growing up means being responsible; making responsible decisions, taking responsibility for whatever decisions were made, and being responsible enough to ask for help if needed.