maturity

Being an adult is hard. I’m thinking about this as someone types the exact same thing to me. It’s a general feeling that I’ve had for the past week. This probably has everything to do with the fact that I am now 40. I have all these preconceived notions of what 40 should be and I can say for sure that I am not there.

I have been evaluating my life to figure out exactly where I am. As a person who has lied to himself on several occasions during my 30’s, self evaluation has become critical to my ever growing development as a person and as a man. It’s not easy to really admit one’s faults but I’ve come to realize that is a young person’s game. At my current age I should have my shit together and its sad to say that I don’t.

I guess you can say that I’ve been “Faking the Funk” when it come to certain portions of my life. I think life can be divided into sections like work, love, family, and financial (to name a few). For the most part, the majority of my life is good and I can’t complain about much. I’m so fortunate to have people that care about me. I’m grateful for my friends, family, and a wonderful job. Yet the financial part of my life is in shambles.

This has nothing to do with whether or not I get paid enough. This has everything to do with a problem I have of ignoring my issues. I can’t even explain why I do it. I will only guess that there is a fear of numbers. I feel like I owe money to the world and it can be a little intimidating. Which is why, at 40, I’m starting to feel that I need to get my shit together. I need to stop pretending that these bills will magically go away because they wont. In short, I need to start acting like a grown up.

blog Maybe I had a little bit of Peter Pan syndrome where I would just fly around shit and just enjoy the things I wanted to do while ignoring the fact that the real world exists. I cannot do that anymore and for many men, that is the crux of the problem. We ignore shit thinking that perhaps things will go away. For many guys, it’s a doctor they avoid and for me it’s my finances (dentists are a close second…smh – don’t worry I have an appointment tomorrow). But, I realize I cannot do this anymore. Forty year olds are supposed to have all this figured out right?

Even if they don’t, I need to get my shit together. I sat down last week in a panic mode trying to figure out how to improve this part of my life because I know I can get out of this mess I created for myself. In order to do this, I need to improve all aspects of my life as well. I created some reminders that go off everyday on my phone such as, creating and checking my daily to-do lists, create an additional budget plan for debt management, going to bed early, and being on time. These are just small things that will lead to larger goal management since, clearly, what I was doing before was not working so I have to try new things. It is very easy for me to NOT do something and it gets easier to be complacent as I get older. So it is all about being intentional to do things outside of my comfort zone.

The sad part about this is that I know that I’m not the easiest person to deal with. I can be defensive and dismissive when people who care try to tell me about my bullshit, but in the end they are absolutely correct. I do need to get my shit together and it has to happen now. I have to start thinking about life as an older man and that requires the type of planning I wasn’t willing to do when I was in my thirties.

I do not know what it is. I feel different this year. Dare I say that I feel more mature.Writing that bio has really made me look at my life, even if it was just a synopsis. I do not feel comfortable enough to claim that I have been through a bad life, but I will say that I have been through some challenging times (haven’t we all?). I am just wondering if I became this wise man when the clock struck twelve on New Years Day.

The last two years have been really tough and I am proud of myself for having endured it. As sit here and type this I wonder if I can say that I have been through a metamorphosis of the psyche. Yes, it is true the a divorce is a life altering event. Things that I took for granted in the past are simply not so anymore. I think I can enjoy life’s little pleasure’s because I am lucky to have endured. There are now things that I simply do not stress anymore. I just do not feel the need to.

I find it remarkable that I can say that if I do not get accepted to Sarah Lawrence that I will be OK. I know that there will be more opportunities and that I will simply have to wait for them. Essentially, I leave it all to fate. This is a line of thinking I would have had an issue with two years ago. I may have even been against it a year ago. Now, all I can say is that if it is meant to be, then it will be. Let me tell you, that is a statement that I once hated.

Perhaps there is merit to thinking that once you have nothing to lose you are free to live. I have come to accept many things in my life and I am not ashamed of it. Acceptance is apart of being able to live life. I cannot hold on to the grudges of old. Now, do not misread me, if you done me wrong and it caused me great pain then chances of me inviting you back into my life are slim and none, yet that does not mean I have harbor ill will or negativity. I will also say that in many cases the person I should have a grudge against is myself for the many things that came from wrong decisions…but you live and learn. I am a better person from it.

Someone asked me how I can just freely admit that my mother disowned me before college and my answer was very simple and to the point: that was another lifetime. This has been my answer for so many things in 2011 when it comes to my past, it was simply another lifetime. I am a different person. I can hardly recognize myself in old pictures. Maybe this is why I take so many pictures of myself. I can see the change.

I just feel more mature, more serene. I just worry, in some small way, that is leading to me not caring anymore about things in general. I just feel that I have the power to make better choices and that I can walk away from the wrong ones. More importantly, I feel that I have to ability to shape my social circle. I know all the talk about how hard it is for a man to make friends as he gets older, but I think that all depends on how open men are to the changes in their life. A broken ego is not something that men bounce back easily from.

I don’t know. There is a lot of thoughts than occur from solitude, which is not a bad thing. Perhaps I have become mature enough to appreciate my time alone so that when I do share my time with others it becomes more meaningful…