"You only grow up by living through the shit that life throws at you."
- Rachel's Holiday, Marian Keyes.
The context this was said totally made me sit up and take another read. It explained a lot, personally speaking. Sometimes, I feel as if I'm always a kid at heart. I even look way younger than I am.
"But whenever life threw problems at me, I just got out of it. So my emotions stayed stopped at twelve.”
Rachel's a drug addict and used this addiction to forget reality. Not all of us are drug addicts, but I can say that we've all used our own way of getting out of life's problems. Some of us are workaholics, or maintain habits that reinforce our dependency on them - such as watching tv, or binging on food - simply because they allow us to avoid our problems, or avoid having to deal with them. In many cases, we pull away from the issue or pretend it isn't there. We avoid the people who would make us face it, and often times this leads to broken relations, and us becoming even more dependent on our habit, because it provides us a comfort of some kind. This revelation is one that makes me understand why I am still that much a child.
Then, there are those times when I feel so absolutely ancient. When life has thrown so much that you've become a pro at hitting home runs (or 6s, for the cricket-inclined), and you've lived and learnt so much.
A big lesson that I've learnt, in how life becomes so much easier, is to forget about "What about me?" And trust me, this is one of the hardest lessons to learn, because at the same time we need to ensure that we're not allowing ourselves to be become doormats or spare tires. But overall, there comes a point when you need to let go of the element "me", and rather than hold expectations about what you are getting, you should focus on what you can give. Not literally speaking of course, in case any of you are taking stock of your inventory.
Your life didn’t suddenly fall apart. You dropped it.”
