The Broad Running Broad

Legally I’ve been an adult for 15-almost-16 years.

But if you really think about the first four or five years of young adulthood – where you’re financially reliant on parents if you go the university route like I did – it feels like true adulthood and the independence that comes with it takes a little longer to arrive.

This past month marked 10 years since moving out of my parents’ house for good and coming to Columbus. Moving out and being able to support myself financially was my marker that I had “made it,” that I could finally stand on my own, and that day I moved into my old apartment felt like a rebirth.

It was also the beginning of Growing Up: It’s Gonna Get Real.

I moved out here for a job opportunity in the field I got my degree in, and I thought I was on track towards my then-dream job. Then I actually started working there and discovered there was so much going on internally that made the role a poor fit for me. I wound up losing that one after six months.

I have no problem acknowledging that the performance they were looking for turned out not to be something I could provide. It did however take me a while to get over the feelings of injustice when I learned everyone else knew I was floundering and was chatting about it amongst themselves, but no one thought to say anything to me about it.

Lesson from that experience: if the long-time employees ever use the term “just like being in a mid-size high school” to describe the work culture, start firing off resumes and catch the first train out of that station.

This led to a six-month period of unemployment – with the money worries and depression to go with it- before getting to work in a field I swore up and down I’d never go into.

I’m still in that field and happier than I thought I would ever be.

After years of being completely mystified by the thought of dating, romance and relationships I got into my first (and possibly only) relationship at 27. The lesson from two and a half years with him: “on paper” attributes can’t trump incompatibility, and the small stuff can easily snowball into A Big Deal.

I’ve also come to realize that there’s no shame in not being a hopeless romantic. For the longest time I thought side-eying pronouncments on Facebook about this love being the Greatest Love Known To Man and not being overly “goopy” meant I was cold or unfeeling, and therefore a sign of something being wrong with me.

Turns out even romantics at heart are put off by public displays of goopiness too and my “off” feelings in those situations were correct: that the louder one has to proclaim how happy they are with a particular someone, the more they’re trying to convince themselves over everyone else.

And then right after turning 30, my grandfather passed away. Saying goodbye and then the worst depression of my life that came with grieving was the catalyst to finally get help with unresolved baggage I’d been carrying for too long. I’ve written extensively about the grief on here before, and don’t want to belabor those points. But I will say almost four years later, I was able to pull wisdom and carry that with me into a healthier place.

Those were the biggest lessons of the past 10 years. Along the way there were smaller lessons – some wonderful and some cringeworthy – where I got to really grow up.

I discovered running and fell in love with the marathon.

I started wandering places on my own after years of “the world is dangerous!” getting thrown my way and discovered most places have their own special magic and most people are in fact good.

Hell, I realized fear is one of the biggest liars and I did not have to accept someone else’s catastrophizing as reality (or humor it, either.)

And I’ve also discovered that I am not in fact meek or soft-spoken. I don’t actively seek conflict, but when situations arise to stand up for myself, I have absolutely no problem doing so.

Reader-friends, I am a grown up.

And I’m looking forward to what the next ten years of being grown is going to teach me.

Yours in life and writing,

Allison