Once upon a time, I was a kid. When I was growing up, I was a kid. Sometime after my eleventh birthday, and I was in grade 6, my mom told me I was still a kid. A boy in my class disagreed. He said we were preteens. Even when I was a teenager, I still considered myself a kid. I\u2019m not a kid anymore. Any person that can buy lottery tickets and get drunk and has an age that starts with a \u201c2\u201d is not a kid. Yes, I am quite sure; I am no longer a kid.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, the world was very black and white. So black and white, that I didn\u2019t speak in metaphors. Adults most certainly did not speak in metaphors to me. I only know that I saw the world in black and white because I am now an adult. (Add that to the list of reasons I am not a kid.) Now, my world is grey; it\u2019s okay to lie if it\u2019s for a greater cause, it\u2019s okay to like two people at the same time if there\u2019s no label on it and you\u2019re honest enough to hurt both of their feelings, it\u2019s okay to give up on things if it\u2019s in your best interest. It\u2019s okay to be selfish. In kindergarten I was told that I had to share with classmates who had no meaning to me. Now, if my co-worker asked to borrow my car, no one would blame me for saying \u201cno\u201d. Actually, it would be crazier to let them borrow it than to put a \u201cboundary\u201d in place. Maybe growing up is only the act of unlearning these habits of sharing, being kind, and caring.<\/p>\n
The structure of black and white provided simplicity, but I still like being an adult more than a kid\u2013I think. Growing up, I was constantly confused without knowing the source of my anxiety, or even realizing that I was anxious. I thought I had to be special to be special. I thought I had to be great to be worth something. It took my becoming an adult to exist without guilt. Now, I\u2019m more comfortable with my human condition than ever; the answer seems to be that there is no answer. My best might be enough, and it also might not be. All the cliches are true, but it\u2019s taken time to find the truth in their triteness. It\u2019s not all that satisfying to use a bandaid of a proverb to mend the hole of dissatisfaction in my heart, but it’s easier to stop looking for an<\/p>\n
answer knowing that there\u2019s no answer. To some things, at least. Maybe I am less anxious because there is less possibility. My potential runs out every day that I live. There is less and less to be anxious about, but also less to be excited about, to be curious about. So, adults create curiosity and suspense, speaking in metaphors.<\/p>\n
I see the world in shades of grey. That\u2019s a metaphor. An adult metaphor, but not like the adult book, more like the way I was explaining. Grey is boring. Grey is a mix of black and white. It\u2019s in everything. Before, when it was all black and white, there was no grey in anything. Two absolutes somehow can\u2019t create possibility. There\u2019s not much room for subtlety.<\/p>\n
Questions?<\/p>\n
Imagination?<\/p>\n
Grace?<\/p>\n
Nuance is fun until it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Nuance is a whisper in the wind and fingertips grazing each other in passing. It\u2019s apprehension and hope, but living this transgressive state forever is exhausting. I want to scream when the professor won\u2019t shut up, run so hard and fast that I vomit, feel the weight and warmth of another body pressing against mine. I speak in metaphors like it means something beyond a convoluted way to say I miss the simplicity of yesterday. When the world was bright and color surrounded me so overwhelmingly that I had to go to bed at 8PM just to process the world of possibility. Adult me calls that, \u201cseeing the world in black and white\u201d. Adult me tries to capture the entire essence of an existence with even more metaphors, decadently stacked atop each other. I do not like when deserts are too sweet, but I still eat them. I\u2019m bored. What\u2019s language more than the metaphor of shapes on a page, anyhow?<\/p>\n
Even now, I wastefully bleed words onto the page without inhibition or shame. As if I don\u2019t reel in the attention it takes to decode the complexity of my existence. As if my life is of<\/p>\n
great wonder beyond the next twenty-something who contains equal and infinite amounts of multitudes and nothingness. I can hear the echo within myself. It comes back to me. It has to have sounded off something. I don\u2019t remember what it said though; I was talking. The End.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"