Early onset adulthood and the awareness of growing up

I am very intimidated by the persistent march of time. Not for fear of my own mortality, but more so that I can’t freeze these good moments like I can pull out of the casino with my winnings, having finished up for the night. It’s just castles on shifting sand. These good days are numbered (as all of life is finite, really); it makes them precious but inevitably the idyllic years to transition into…. something, some physical or mental symbol of what’s to come, and I think I’m approaching that precipice. There are more defined moments now where I feel more adult than child, mostly in moments of sadness or somber in awareness of the fleeting nature of something, or when I start recognizing the impact of how time can affect change upon a situation. I think part of the magic of childhood is the feeling of endlessness and eternity, captured in the allure of a story like Peter Pan. But there are more and more moments of realness and commitment and levity smattered through these days now, when friendships morph and change, chance and circumstance rend people to different coasts, mortality reminds us of what’s at stake, and time tests truths we once thought immutable. Everything about it feels foreign.

I really wish I could hold on to that post-college feeling. I try not to visit the topic too frequently (it’s a somber topic!) but there are more and more times when I feel that I am in “adult mode”. It was really important to me in this longitudinal blogging process that I capture this feeling. The difference between then and now? When I’m less able to retreat into the shell of indifference at work when things don’t go my way — instead, I’m compelled to lean in. It’s around that first “promotion” of skill level, when you can no longer really consider yourself a rookie. (In consulting, I’m out of that analyst crest of ignorance! The cesspit of consultant responsibilities is quite wide.) What I spend my days doing now is how I’ll be spending my life! I can’t afford to disengage. With it comes these burdens, comes a box. This is the box in which I am supposed to construct my life. When I was a child I thought I got a world when I grew up, but now I see that the life you build is only what you build, though you can have the freedom to where to build it. Strangely enough I’m in this great relationship, and it is testing how I can spend my time with friends idly while also trying to fit idle time in with Dean. Idleness and that comfort come naturally…. It can’t be scheduled in, I can’t force the feeling of bonding in boredom, which is how I think the most productive and fruitful friendships of my youth came about. But I really like both; I want both.

I have been meaning to put words on paper (screen) for nearly two weeks now but my words and my mood were unsatisfactory. I just finished watching the first season of Black Mirrors though, which is quite dark in its approach of technology but really evokes a feeling of saudade. Nostalgia for a less connected time. The third episode on memory was particularly interesting and unsettling, since I was almost staffed on a related project at the new job. Jonah Lehrer wrote about the fallibility of memory as well, and I think that is necessary as a human trait. The privacy and impermanence and imperfection of memories is so powerful to me as an emotional treasure….. Those good memories are more precious to me than any object, and the memories I have of childhood, even the more recent ones of child-like states like post college hanging out and drinking in KTown and laughing with big groups is at once wonderful as sweet memories but so bitter in that they seem so far away, and distinctly different than now. I guess I really miss those times, and the more I think about them now, the more awkwardly I approach the future. My mind has kind of disengaged from that period, shutting it down and closing the file as “over” with this new job and the last of the Stuytown crew leaving and changing dynamics of those in NY and not really figuring out still how to balance passive chilling time between Dean, friends, and my own time. I associate this detachment with growing “adult” personas, the kind that some people have early on and let’s them raise families or start businesses. For me, it settled in like a chronic syndrome triggered by circumstance. Ready or not here it comes — the feeling of adulthood. I have two options – out-think it or ignore it. But there is no everlasting banquet under the sun.

I wrote this last night at 2:30AM, peering and probably blinding myself on a little touch screen phone in a dark room, but I woke up feeling this: I’m acutely aware of time and maturing and aging, I loved the childhood and adolescent and now young adult years that I have, and I want to hold on to it so much because I’ve become increasingly aware that these memories move at a velocity. I noticed this velocity by noticing the changes that time brings. I don’t think I can ignore it, it’s not really in my nature, but I’m close to out-thinking it. You know, in sarcastic references in pop culture where twenty-somethings are like, “Ugh we’re so old now?!” — I’m there, I’m there all the time, but there’s so much pushing back of “I’m so young” too that it’s very thrilling. I think my comments last night came across more glum than intended, but mostly, time is a river and I’m floating down it! Looking forward to new adventures too.

EDIT: This Bold Italic article captures some of my sentiments pretty well. It’s a general complaint about the shifting nature of SF too, which is interesting on its own — for so long, that foggy western outpost has been a Neverland to so many. But I see New York like that too, and our Neverlands end up being in Williamsburg and Bushwick and such.