growing up is an option...

   At this very moment, I have 8 friends who are engaged (if I counted correctly). Either the love bug has gone epidemic, or I am finally at that age where everyone I know starts getting married. I think the latter is true.
   This past summer, the first two of my high school friends tied the knot. It seemed surreal sitting in the audience as they vowed their lives to their husbands. I felt like I should instead be watching them receive pins at Honors Day and walk back to sit by their parents.But that didn't happen. They kissed, went off on honeymoons, and now they are married. They have left their parents and have become their own families. We really have grown up.
   It may seem as if I talk about growing up too frequently, but at this point in my life, it is a shocking realization that I am not growing up anymore, I'm grown. From here on out it will just be growing older. When I was little,  I was saddened to think that I might actually grow up, and I wanted no part of it. I wanted to keep getting mounds of presents from Santa- not just pieces of jewelry in a tiny box and some clothes. Boring! After all, it was all about quantity, not quality. I wanted to continue to go to school and see my friends everyday, go to sleepovers, dance class, and church choir. Grown-ups don't get to do all those fun things. And I vowed that if I ever did grow up, I would become a princess and live in my parents' backyard forever.
    I have since neglected some of those dreams and embraced the time that has passed. In fact, I really look forward to doing some of those boring grown-up things now. I am, however, very aware of the reality that I am living through the end of an era. Things are changing, drastically. This may be the first Christmas where my 7 best friends and I don't have our annual Christmas get-together like we have since elementary school- at least not all of us. This part of growing up is a little sad. Our old lives don't fit us anymore, and we are trying on new ones.
   BUT I will focus on the positive, happy parts of getting older. There are so many! After all, just because things aren't the same, doesn't mean they won't be wonderful. Plus, it's kind of nice not knowing what's next. I am really looking forward to figuring it all out. I know God has a plan and I am just waiting for it to unfold.
   And as far as the end of this era is concerned, growing old may be mandatory, but growing up is an option.