is this growing up?

My senior year of high school, my advisor told me that I would take five friends with me to college, meaning that I would only maintain five of my high school friendships following graduation.

I didn’t believe her, but it’s been another four years and another graduation, and of the more than ten people I was convinced I would be celebrating with, I’m only friends with one of them. I haven’t seen him in over a year.

Is this growing up?

On June 11th, I realized that I no longer loved a man I had once been in love with, because while I still wanted his validation, and his attention, and I still wanted him to love me, it was selfish and ego-driven, and the way I felt about him had changed too much to call it “love” anymore. There was no desire to save him anymore, I just wanted someone to save me.

On June 28th, I asked him if we could call to catch up because I missed him. I did. I still do. Part of me might miss him forever, but he told me he wasn’t ready yet, so I didn’t text him again.

On September 9th, he wished me a happy birthday. He sent me the same text I had sent him on May 28th. It was midnight in France and 6pm in New York, where I presumed he was given that’s where he lives, and I cried for two minutes and then I stopped. Fourteen hours later I drank four glasses of wine on a two-vineyard tour in the Beaujolais region and fifteen hours later I texted him asking if he wanted me to send him a postcard from Europe. I asked him in French and he responded yes in English despite once telling me he was fluent in the former. Sixteen hours later I drank six more glasses of wine and eighteen hours later I was drinking yet another. My friend bought me dumplings for dinner while we sat on his couch watching Modern Family and he didn’t know it was my birthday but it might have been the best one yet.

I have finally accepted that I can no longer claim to know who he is, because perhaps he’s changed as much as I have, and while I hope to one day learn something about whoever he has become I know that I’ll still be okay if I never do.

I wanted him to save me, but I didn’t need him to, and on September 12th I realized that I have the courage to save myself.

Is this growing up?

I’m scared of the dark and I have trouble falling asleep without my favorite stuffed animal, but I wanted to go on a solo trip to Europe for three and a half months so I booked a solo trip to Europe for three and a half months.

Is this growing up?

It’s the question I continue to ask: Is this growing up?

I came to Europe because I needed to leave New York. In the span of four years, I experienced three relationships defined by turmoil, I witnessed the undoing of my parents’ marriage, I lost both of my remaining family dogs, I said goodbye to one of my childhood homes, I was hospitalized because my body had to physically break down to slow down, and I discovered the meaning of girlhood while having to realize everything that I don’t want it to be. 

I needed to run away, so I did.

Growing up is living, and then it’s leaving, and sometimes it’s returning, but other times you just have to leave and never look back.

I know I’ll see New York again, but I know I won’t be the same person then because I’m already not the same person I was two weeks ago, and I’m only looking forward from here.

This, to me, is growing up.