Oh, to be young again ...

Ok, I am very much aware that despite the title of this entry I am not in fact old. I was realizing however that simply by getting a "real" job and getting married I have somehow gotten a great deal older than people who are my own age. I also appreciate that other people only a few years older than me have been like that for a whole decade. Part of growing up seems to be constantly trying to be a grown up. When you are a kid you deliberately act like a grown up, whether it is part of a game of pretending, or to look older than your younger siblings, kids immate being a grown-up. We also set some arbitrary markers, like when you can drive, or when you turn 18, or when you finish school. I certainly think there is some truth behind these, but it has really struck me that part of growing up is just when you stop asking the question am I there yet, and start living into the reality of who you have become. There is always another marker you could reach for, getting married, getting a "real" job, having kids, but no matter what you set it at, it comes down to your mentality. I am not an adult because I got a "real" job and got married, I am more of an adult because I have reached a different stage of growth, because I am not looking to who I will become, but looking at establishing who I am. This doesn't do anything for the peope who will remark how young I am to be a pastor, or who may still treat me as less than an adult, but it does something for how I appoach things. Somehow this as more profound in my head than when typed out, but such is life ...