childhood's end

I don't think I ever seriously expected to live this long. (Not because I have a tragic, life-threatening disease or anything. I think I assumed that some magical adventure would sweep me away to Narnia or Neverland or Middle Earth, where I would become the adult I was really meant to be while ruling the world. Or die heroically. Whatever.)

I've just never pictured myself as an adult. Really, my inner vision of myself has never aged past the age of thirteen--fifteen, on a good day. (Does it make it any better if I say I was mature for my age? I'm pretty sure I was, then.)

21. The final frontier of adolescence.

At 18, one is technically--legally--an adult, but no one actually expects you to behave like one. At 21, everything changes. All that is legal, I may do and suffer the consequences thereof.

Drink? Check.
Smoke? Check.
Rent a car? Check.
Buy a house and work a job and pay taxes? Check, check, check.

When, at slumber parties, my friends and I would map our lives--demarcating the boundaries of our future selves with the impudence of little popes--and I was always married by 21.

I am not who I expected to be.
I am neither the vague copy of my mother and sisters I told myself to become, nor the cool adult I secretly wanted to be. (I guess it's just not as easy to become a time-travelling spy as the movies make it seem.) I'm somewhere in between, both more and less than I expected.

But all is well
and all is well
and, thanks to the grace and love of my lord,
all will be well.

Pax
.....

Song of the week: "Blackbird" (originally by the Beatles)