Growing Up

"Growing up" has just hit me like a brick wall.

Last night, I was sitting alone in my apartment. My mom left about 15 minutes prior to go back home (3 hour trip). One roommate hasn't moved in yet. The other roommate was out doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who.

I felt so alone.

I never felt like that when I got left in the dorms. There was always other rooms with people milling about. Not always people I knew, but at least they were making noise. It was just so...quiet then. No, not really quiet, because the fan was on and I could hear noises. It just felt...empty. Like I was, for once, totally alone.

It was scary.

It was also weird, though, because sitting there alone, I feel like I had some revelations about "life as an adult." I love Fight Club, and the scene at the beginning where Ed Norton was talking about filling his apartment with stuff as his "life" suddenly made complete sense. I felt like I finally knew exactly what he felt like in that scene. I was sitting there having a mini existential crisis, contemplating who I was and what my place in the world was, and all I could think about was how empty my "home" was. My first two thoughts were to fill it up with stuff, or just veg out in front of the TV.

Thankfully, I have no money to buy things, and my TV isn't hooked up to anything.

So I sat there longer, feeling more and more lonely. The emptiness in my apartment started creeping into my body. I started listening to Brand New. I got sad. For the first time, I really missed my family. Right before leaving, my mom and I were playing Super Rub-A-Dub on my ps3. It was hilarious, and we were having fun. Hearing the game's background music made me sadder. I tried to distract myself from things by surfing the internet. Then the internet got boring, as it usually does when I'm using it to distract myself.

I finally fell asleep.

Thank goodness.

And now I'm recalling a memory of something that happened last winter break when I was at home. The post-high/20-something group of people at my church went to the ice rink to go skating, so I went along. It was fun enough, and afterwards we went back to church to eat some desserts and stuff. Sitting there, watching the others drink coffee and play cards, I thought to myself "Is this really what grown ups do for fun?"

I was astounded.

Why does growing up seem mean the death of fun? Last night I felt a glimpse of what it was like to be an adult, doing adult things. Being responsible for a place to live. I feel it even more so today, after getting home from work to a once again empty apartment. Life drones on and on, monotonously shuffling from day to day, week to week, year to year. I remember reading a quote somewhere, something about how when you let one moment of your life become meaningless, you let every moment become meaningless.

That's not how I want to live.