Ready to fly

Feelin' a little philosophical today. I've been struck lately by the differences in people's personalities when it comes to feeling "adult," and by "adult" I mean that mental place where you feel all grown up and capable and confident about your decisions and you don't need the approval of your parents or a consensus of "others" to believe that you are right.

I know people who have felt "adult" since high school. They've taken on the world, been afraid of nothing, never questioned their attack, never concerned themselves particularly with anyone else's approval, and lived exactly on their own terms. From the outside, I've disagreed with some of their choices and been able to make quite the logical argument for why they should've done things another way. But I never made that argument to them, because (a) it was none of my business to tell someone else how to live their life and (b) it wouldn't have made an difference in what they did anyway and probably would've caused a rift between us. And furthermore, even if I didn't always agree with what they did, I envied their hutzpah to do it.

I've often wish I had more...courage? Maybe that's the word. I spent much of my life being too afraid of what others would think - everyone from peers at school to my parents - or too afraid of some long-term, unlikely consequence to chase after dreams or leap off cliffs that I should have. I was afraid that taking that risk would lead to me lying at the bottom of the cliff bloodied and broken forever. So, I stood at the top, a safe distance from the edge and watched while other people threw themselves over the side with abandon, and it never occurred to me that there never seemed to be any ambulances screaming to anyone's rescue. No one needed any saving.

I wasn't always like that. As a child, I was fearless and totally convinced of my ability in any situation. It's true! I assumed I could do anything anyone else could do, and I threw myself head-first into everything I got a notion to do. And if you told me I couldn't do something, you should probably get out of the way because then it was my personal mission to prove you wrong. And it never really occurred to me that there might be a crisis of approval regarding my choices. Life was my oyster, and dammit there were pearls inside! Somewhere along the line, though, there was a shift.

Don't get me wrong. I've acccomplished a lot. I've been successful, in my estimation, and I've had a great many cool experiences and met some interesting, amazing people along the way. I've traveled. I've worked hard. I've made great friends and grown into someone I like and like being. I have a great family and a good life, by just about any standard. And I have an amazing, supportive man in my life that I waited a really long time for. I'm pretty confident in most situations, and I believe the word "spitfire" was used in reference to me recently by a co-worker. But I can look back and see so many times when I should have tried something but didn't out of one fear or another, and I regret not jumping off more cliffs and giving God the chance to show me how to fly.

My 30s have been a time of growth, achievement, strengthening and ever-increasing clarity and peace. It's been a good period for me. But I hope that as I approach a new period in my life, I will have not just the will, but the courage to start flying more - or more accurately, the courage to leap, trusting that God will show me to fly, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should be doing. I know I won't always have Other People's approval if I do so. But I'll have mine, and I'm pretty sure I'll have God's, and in the end, those are the only two people who take your entire journey.

Is this a mid-life crisis? Is it more growth? Or is it just a returning to who I was supposed to be all along - the essential me? I hope it's the last one. And I hope I'm finding my wings early enough to take all the flights God had planned for me. I hope that when I'm 90 and looking back on my life, I see a life well lived, not one safely seated on a bench, carefully back from the cliff, never knowing what was on the other side.