RIPE

Last week when I went to see my therapist, we were discussing fine-tuning, next steps, where I'd like to see improvements in my life, etc. And I made a rather lame joke about what I'd do when I grew up. A joke, I'm embarrassed to say, I've made too often lately. Lazy. 

He let not more than a millisecond pass before looking me squarely in the eyes and pronouncing the following: "You are grown up, Charlotte."

There it was. Out in the open. Shockingly true and strangely liberating. I am grown up. Mature. A woman. Whatever I've done so far has been a matter of choice and consequent decision-making. Whatever I will do or not do from here on out, will also be a matter of choice and consequent decision-making. Nothing, at this point, is because I am too young to figure it out yet, too "green," too inexperienced.  

It's time to stop making excuses. It's also time to accept what I'm not going to do—ever—in order to make room for the many things I am going to accomplish, still. 

I think in our youth-obsessed culture, which has largely to do with outward appearances, we confuse the "beauty" of youth with the excuse of immaturity. But you can't really have one without the other. And right now, I'm not interested in either. 

Maturation has been anything but boring. So I'm no longer going to deny the fruits of my own labor—those which have hung heavily, ripely on the tree, and those which will grow in seasons to come. 

And I'm sure as shit not going to my grave waiting for myself to figure this out. It would be such a shame to grow old and die, having bypassed the part where you know who you are. The wrong words tend to wear grooves in our minds, until we believe them. I'm changing the words today.

—Charlotte