Growing Up

My morning was filled with nostalgic memories of my youth from 12 years to 21. I sat in the church where I grew up, filling the benches in my mind with others who have sat there years before, and some who still do. It is always weird for me to pass through there, as if I were home, but I’m a stranger there. I left my life there nearly ten years ago and have been wandering ever since, discovering me, looking for me. Sometimes I think I’ve stumbled upon myself, but then I go home and I wonder.


Tonight I had choir practice. Still in my nostalgic thoughts, I glanced around at my fellow singers. During our warm ups, we sang the alphabet, very quickly, with a different tune; one that involved going up and down the scale. Anyway, two young girls in front of me were dancing spastically to the tune and having a seemingly delightful time. I didn’t feel so delightful at all. I looked around and concluded, as I have often lately, that I didn’t fit in there. I don’t fit in at choir, at institute, at church, or at any other young single adult gathering. I wondered when this had happened. When did I stop fitting in? I think that maybe the past several years, I have played along and just tried, all the while, deep down, knowing that it was coming to an end and I was slowly falling out of place.

The question now though is, where do I fit in? Do I really belong in the older single crowd? I feel like I must be way too young for that. Yet as I look around the choir, I know that I must be old enough because the other choir attendees and I are in quite different places in life. I feel like I left my life at 21 and sort of stayed there while everyone else I grew up with moved on with their lives. I saw them there today, as mothers, and not of just young children either. I saw the adults I knew, having grown older while all the while, I am like a Tuck, who had drank from the fountain of youth and never aged. I feel much like the young 21 year old I was when I left there, only with a lot more wisdom and sense of self; more independence and direction, and of course, much more of life’s experiences. But still, how did I get here at this crossroad, in such a predicament?

No wonder it is so hard to know where to find men. Maybe they are having the same aging crises’. This is why I believe they are spread out, and not all in one place. There are many options for us at this point in our lives, and obviously, to each his own. As I decide what to do, I feel like I have to re-contemplate where to look. Of course I am always doing that. I’ve been online again lately, just a little. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t be so harsh on the online dating world. Sometimes I think that I should give it another chance. It’s hard for me to let my pride go and really make an effort though. But maybe.

Another realization also came to me last night. As I sat at my niece’s baptism, (my true love did not appear…just so you know) I looked at the program and saw that all four of the young one’s getting baptized were girls. Here is the problem! Of course they were all girls. It just goes to show that there is a shortage of men, even from a young age. The girls are the ones getting baptized while the boys are doing who knows what. Starting a life of crime I imagine…and leaving us girls to fend for ourselves! Okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but I thought it was no wonder that there are so many of us roaming the earth, looking for a decent older man.

My 31st birthday is quickly approaching and with it, much change. I guess that’s the reason for my inward struggle and reflection of my past. Also, they are changing the single’s wards a little here, combining some stakes and things like that. Those in my little branch are excited for the change. It brings hope and possibility to them. To me, it is an end. It’s an end of this age of self-discovery, and a point at which I must move forward with my life, as an adult; one who is independent and self-driven, yet still hopeful of possibility, just unsure of where to find it.