Grownup

When I was younger, my brother and I shared a bunk bed. Rather than a place for sleeping, the bed usually served as a jungle gym, a rocket ship, or one of many other scenarios that we imaginatively created.

Despite mom and dad's constant warnings against playing on the top bunk, the thought of climbing that bright red metal ladder was, more often than not, too tempting to resist. The top offered so many exciting experiences like pretending to "walk" on the ceiling, dangling our action figures perilously over the edge of the "cliff," and, of course, jumping to the floor below.

Nevertheless, our parents insisted that we were to never play on the top bunk "unless an adult was in the room."

One evening, when my Aunt Stephanie was visiting, my brother and I seized the opportunity to lure her into our room and begin playing on the top bunk. Her presence, we assumed, made playing up top fair game. Before long, my mom came in, hand on hip and eyebrows raised, "What are you two doing?"

"Aunt Steffy's a dote!" I responded in our defense.

If only it were that simple. If only my childlike definition of adulthood were the whole picture. If only adulthood were marked simply by the fact that you surpassed a certain age threshold.

But adulthood is far more complicated and difficult and unlike anything I've ever had to do.

Being an adult is working full-time and taking night classes and laughing when people say things like "when you have free time." Being an adult is going to Walmart at two in the morning to get your wife cough medicine. It's sitting up with her into the early hours of the morning laughing and crying and discussing the future as unsettling as it may be.

Being an adult is missing your best friend's birthday party because you have to work and you can't afford to lose the hours. It's having a panic attack in the driveway because you're so overwhelmed with stress that you can't bring yourself to go inside.

Being an adult is saying "I'm doing well" when people ask how you are, although it couldn't be further from the truth.

Being an adult is finding out that you're going to be a father, that you're going to have a child when you secretly still feel like a child yourself.

I wish it could be as simple as I once imagined it to be. I wish my childhood perception of being an "a dote" aligned with what I now have come to understand as true adulthood, but it's not.

Growing up, I was told in school, at church, at home...everywhere that I was bring prepped to make that headstrong leap into adulthood. Looking back, I realize how misguided that notion is.

Adulthood isn't a state of mind or a chronological place in your timeline. It's a choice to set difficult goals and achieve them, to swallow the stress and the anger and the sadness and grow more than you ever thought you could, work harder than you ever thought you could, and become more than you ever thought you could be.

Growing up is hard, hard stuff. But it's worth it.

Excuses, motivation, and some other junk

"Above all else, to thine ownself be true."

- Shakespeare

Most of us grew up with some form or assemblage of these words echoed through parents, teachers, preachers, and friends. We've heard stories, read books, and watched movies where the protagonist emerges triumphant despite wave after wave of opposing forces trying to convince them to deny a part of themselves.

We've foolishly absorbed this information as if it was nothing more than an inspirational pick-me-up for the soul. Our generation is locked in this purgatorial stasis where we acknowledge the necessity to be true to ourselves, but yet, we consistently neglect to do so. We treat self-actualization like a period of rapid ascension into adulthood or some post-mid-life enlightenment designed to kick in at a predetermined moment in our lives, but it's not. It was never meant to be like that.

Owning up to who you are as an individual, the core of your metaphysical existence is not an event contained by any time-based parameters. It's a process that you have to take part in, choose to take part in everyday. And I say choose because it's 100% your decision who you are and who you want to become.

This isn't some motivational speech. This is your life we're talking about.

Stop trying to define yourself through your friends. There's an old saying that goes, "If you hang out with chickens, you're going to cluck, and if you hang out with eagles, you're going to fly." 

Frankly, that's a load of crap. 

That statement is so fundamentally weak that it might as well gift wrap an excuse for the behavior of every individual who falls prey to it. Statements like that apply situation-based logic to displace blame and mask guilt. It's nothing more than a glorified, universal crutch. 

I'm here to tell you that I make my own choices, not my friends, acquaintances, or anyone else I interact with. I make my own choices just like every other human being on this planet God created including yourself. Free will isn't just a cute little biblical concept that we toss around on Sunday morning to make us feel warm and fuzzy. The living, breathing creator God thrust His hand into each and every man and woman and specifically positioned free will at the forefront of our design. Free will isn't an afterthought; it's hard-coded into our DNA. Free will is etched into our souls.

Ephesians 6:11-13 says,

"Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world...put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything...stand."

In simple terms: "God can literally protect you from the devil himself, the embodiment of evil, so why are you worried about everything else?"

In even simpler terms: "Take your excuses and shove 'em."

Stop trying to absolve yourself of the guilt you feel for your past actions, seeking refuge in "yes men" (and "yes women") to soothe the sting on your conscience. Stop trying to define yourself or "find yourself" in anything this world has to offer. Stop letting your job deteriorate your value system. Stop allowing negative people to influence you, and when they do influence you, for Pete's sake, don't make up some screwball excuse. You messed up. Own it, and move on.

God gave you one shot at a beautiful, fulfilling life, but you have to take charge of it. You have to stop letting authority figures bully you because you have the Ultimate Authority on your side. Stop letting people tell you the way you think or feel or act is wrong when everything in your soul tells you otherwise. Stop living in fear and misery.

Cut the crap. Drop the act. Make use of the free will God gave you.

I know you've heard it a bajillion times from every person under the sun, but for the sake of your heart and happiness and future listen and absorb and dissect these words...

Just be you.

Everyday.

Two weeks. Two. More. Weeks. That's how long I have to wait to marry my best friend and better half.

That's how long I must wait to hear those beautiful words leave her lips, those words I've been dying to hear since I fell in love with her almost two years ago: "I do."

Stories are often told of little girls who grow up dreaming of one day finding and marrying their true love. It's not the norm for a boy, much less a 22 year-old man to openly admit to dreaming of finding love.

But I did.

Growing up in church, I received my weekly ration of Adam and Eve references, how God created Eve of the same flesh as Adam and how whole and completing their relationship was. I marveled at how love between two people could be that powerful, so powerful, in fact, that the human race was literally born of it. Words cannot describe how sacred and profound that first romance must have been. Their marriage was founded deeply with God-crafted emotions predating the universe itself, and while they were created as two creatures, that ancient, wonderful, incredible, breathtaking love bound them together as one.

That a man and woman could bond in such an all-consuming way that they essentially become an extension of one another in mind, body, and spirit...amazing.

Throughout my life, I (admittedly) haven't prayed about very many things consistently, but one thing I have asked God for almost as long as I could remember is for Him to allow me to one day find my own "Eden" story, a love rooted in God's love for me and as joyous and rewarding as the acceptance of that love.

And so...as Matthew 21:22 says, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

And my, oh my, the blessing I have received.

So no, I don't really mind to wait a little bit longer. Two weeks is hardly anything at all.

I've been waiting all my life to find that most precious of treasures God describes in His word. The love that Proverbs describes as the "overflowing of a fountain," a love that's "worth far more than jewels" and the physical manifestation of God's own love for man. Patience is a virtue, and my beautiful girl is the reason I know that.

A few weeks ago, I was looking through photos of the day we were engaged. The joy on her face was absolutely priceless. I decided right then, that if I could make her that happy everyday, if I could make her want to marry me everyday, and if I chose to love her like God loves me everyday, like Adam loved Eve everyday, then at the end of my life I wouldn't have wasted a single moment.

I love you, Molly, and I will everyday. I promise. Two more weeks 'til forever.

Growing Pains

Growing up sucks harder than a dehydrated preschooler with a half-empty Capri Sun pouch.

And based on the conversations I've had recently about this realization, the fact that growing up sucks is apparently understood and simultaneously unspoken by everyone over the age of 25.  Thanks for warning us guys.  As if belonging to the lethargic masses of Gen Y wasn't already difficult enough.

I guess, rather than brooding, I could explain where all this angst is coming from.  Recently, Molly and I began searching for our first home together.  We naively assumed that we could acquire a beautiful, move-in ready starter home for about fifty-thousand dollars less than what informed, rational, educated adult people already knew we would need to spend but failed to mention to either of us.

Needless to say, our initial search was quite terrifying.

We started looking with the first agent that listed his number on a hand-written realty sign (red flag #1) in the yard of a property which we now refer to as the "fight club" house.  The smell inside the home was so toxic that I'm fairly certain it would disintegrate a Febreeze can on contact.  Without a doubt, the fetid odors leaking from that house are responsible for the growing hole in the ozone layer and should be dealt with by the U.S. government accordingly.

There were rotting wooden boards nailed haphazardly to random walls throughout the house, and the doorways were latched with rusty locks, most likely to keep out (or in) whatever animal had previously lived there.  The carpet was stained in what appeared to be some combination of blood and stomach bile, and the sheetrock had deep, Freddy Krueger-like claw markings from floor to ceiling.  We didn't even make it past the living room before abandoning hope and fleeing the house to prevent further lung damage.

The best part of the story?  Our so-called realtor, after it was all said and done, informed us in an almost hopeful tone, "It might need a little work." A little work.  The house that could cause cancer if viewed in direct sunlight and has no living plant life around it in a half-mile radius "might" need a "little" work. Really.

But hey, at least things could've only gotten better from there, right?  Sadly, no.

The next showing was a pile of ashes. The house had literally been burned down shortly before we arrived.  Embers glowing.  Wet smoke billowing from an empty lot.  God made it clear to us that it was time to change tactics.  That or He really didn't want us buying a house.

Thankfully, He had a plan.  We ditched the dunce and hired a wonderful Christian friend I've known and loved for years.  With her assistance and a few weeks of pleasantly odored showings (for the most part), we found "the one," the house we wanted to start our lives together in.  Before we knew it, we were sitting crosslegged in the floor of our soon-to-be living room signing paperwork.

Agreements, offers, disclosures, some stuff I wasn't even sure what it meant (don't kill me, Mrs. Shoffner). Every piece of paper I initialed, I mistakenly thought, got us closer to the romanticized outcome in my head where Molly and I would soon be picking paint colors and placing furniture in this flawless house of our dreams.

Instead, here we are a week and a half later, and I'm still signing paperwork, negotiating terms, and asking for repairs on a house I assumed was perfect.  I'm filled with uncertainty not knowing what will turn up in each new inspection, not knowing if the next repair will wind up being the straw that breaks the camel's back (or the seller's wallet, in this case).

I can't pretend that I'm not overwhelmed or scared making one massive decision after another.  I won't act like I don't miss the days when my most difficult decision was Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops.  New expenses are popping up every day, chipping away at my bank account and absolutely terrifying me.  Even now, I find myself just as worried as I was leaving the fight club house almost three months ago.

But in the end, my gratitude outweighs my burden.  I'm so thankful God has brought us so far from where we were.  I'm thankful that we're weeks from closing on a wonderful home.  I'm thankful I have the ability to purchase and afford a home at all.  I'm thankful that Molly, for whatever reason, still wants to marry me after all this.

And most of all, I'm thankful that I'm growing up...even if it really, REALLY sucks sometimes.