It is officially Fall, and I am in love with this weather. Fall is my very favorite time of the year. The cool air, clear blue skies, and quiet restfulness of the season lend me a sense of peace and inner joy that spreads into all the areas of my life.
Tomorrow is the first of October, and it is less than two weeks until it is my birthday. I don't know what I am doing for my birthday. This will be my first away from home, and it saddens me to think that I cannot spend it with my old good friends. And with a party like last year and the year before, any future birthday of mine has a great deal to live up to. Worries run through my head: What if it's completely miserable? What if no one wants to or has time to celebrate with me? What if everyone forgets? I really hope that I can find something to do, whether it is a small get-together with old and new friends, dinner with friends and family, those that I love, or perhaps the upcoming Perry Fair. I don't need a big party, but I do wish for something enjoyable and memorable to make my 18th Birthday a special day.
It's hard to believe that I am going to be 18. Mostly because I remember looking back, while approaching my 15th Birthday, and thinking that the day was so distant and far away. What would past Lacy think if she had known the time would go so fast? It's been three years since then, and three years is an impossibly long stretch of life. I find myself caught up between two viewpoints of life; part of me still feels like a young girl, just role-playing the part of a College student and near grown-up. I'm still learning the ropes of living on my own, of answering telephones and working minimum-wage jobs while working my own business and having to deal with people myself instead of passing the task onto my mother. I'm still adjusting to the shock of having to buy my own snacks, trying to figure out why laundry detergent is so damn expensive, and figuring out an easy way to lug my laundry down to the basement.
And yet, at the same time, I catch occasional glimpses in myself of what I saw in older people when I was truly just a young girl; mature, confident, grown-ups who had all the answers and seemed so capable of all the tasks at hand. Part of me has certainly grown up, I can't deny that. But what would my younger self see in me now? Would she see a young woman, nearly grown? Or just a little girl, still trying to find out how to grow up in this far away place away from home?
I chalk my qualms all down to the realization that this is just "one of those points in life." 18 is a time to grow and explore, to experience a larger part of the world which will, in turn, help me to become more of who I am to be. I don't know all the answers; and, unlike the last 3-4 years of my life, I am old enough to realize that. I still have a lot of things to experience, like voting and signing waivers as an adult and clubbing and losing vast quantities of money on the lottery (just kidding, mom.) I still have a long way to go until I will really feel like an adult - or maybe I will always be one of those oddballs, the ones that stay children forever and never grow up.
In the space under occupation I do still put princess, after all.
Disney three years ago!
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