the edge of the knife

Everyone always asks the same question on you birthday: Does seven feel any different than eight; is 16 drastically different than 15? How about 21 versus 20?

Having just done the last one, I have to admit that for the first time, it does feel a bit different.

I have just passed into American adulthood. In the United States, you can drive at 16, vote and serve your country at 18, but you're not really considered an adult until you can mosey up to the bar and order a beer (or whatever). It was weird to sit at dinner yesterday and drink a margarita with my Mexican food. It all still feels very dangerous and foreign.

My friends and I have been talking a lot recently about growing up. Since most of my friends are graduating, this is a topic of great interest, one that brings a barrage of uncertainty and general terror. Yet, there is a surprisingly low concentration of excitement in this mix.

As American children, adulthood is the coveted status. As little girls we play house, wanting to be mommies with husbands and houses and families. As teenagers we wear make-up and dress to simulate age beyond our years. But I've noticed recently that once adulthood is actually within our reach, we seem to hit a wall. College undergrads forgo jobs and responsibility for two more years of graduate school. Middle-age women get Botox and boob-jobs.

It seems to be a case of situational dissatisfaction. We all want what we can't have. To children, the responsibility of adulthood and the ability to make decisions for oneself is incredible because the ability doesn't exist. For adults, the idealism of being young and free of responsibiliy is the utmost desire in the face of "grown-up problems" like a job, a mortgage and kids.

Why can't we be happy with what we've got? As some one standing in limbo, on the edge of the knife of adulthood and childhood, I'm scared to tip both ways. I'm not quite ready for one and I'm not quite ready to leave the other.

I think it's all a matter of adjustment. With time, hopefully I'll learn to accept my new place. Either that, or come 40, I'll just invest in some plastic surgery. Only kidding.

fitting

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that your life fits? I hadn't had one in a while.

Friday night was Fellow's Mixer Night - the incoming freshmen vying for a place in Elon as a Journalism and Communications Fellow come to our building and meet the current Fellows.

I was in demand this year, being the managing editor for our newspaper, and it was weird to suddenly be somewhat important. But it wasn't the power that got me, it was the conversation.

As I was standing there schmoozing with the students, selling Elon and its glories, I started talking with a few of my professors. The conversation turned to grammar and punctuation, and split infinitives. I marveled as I listened to these people discuss something so esoteric as a split infinitive, passionately debating whether they're actually a grammatical error or not.

I stood there, smiling, offering my input, and I realized that I could not have chosen a better place to try to belong.

All my life, I've been a wordy. No one ever really seems to get it - boyfriends, parents, friends, no one seems to understand how I can find extra spaces between words, or anguish over dangling modifiers, comma splices or the correct use of affect versus effect. No one seemed to understand, until Friday. They got it. My professors, I'm just like them.

I feel like it's easy for cinema buffs, or painters or biologists -- there are plenty of people who get excited about those things. Copy editing, that's a niche market. There are so few of us. It was so nice to finally feel like I fit in.

Call me a nerd, or a dork, or a geek, whatever. But you know that when you're writing your resume, cover letters, grad school applications and/or wedding vows, you hand them to me, and they'll never sound better.

pulling back

I've been having trouble reflecting lately. My life, since my last post, has performed some serious acrobatics. And I find myself struggling to keep up. I'm terribly afraid that the continuous movement and forward momentum, the constant push ahead, is going to catch up with me soon, and it's really not going to be very pretty.

They say burning the candle at both ends is bad for you - but it's nothing a little vitamin C can't fix. Elon students, I've found, have an obsession with this tasty citrus nutrient. They believe, and I've realized that I do too, that orange juice cures all ails.

But as I sit here with my Minute Maid, I'm struck by the fact that orange juice, no matter how potent, will not cure a restless mind.

Two of my best friends at Elon were fitted for their caps and gowns today. They're graduating at the end of this semester and going on to start their lives. One is thinking of moving to Singapore or South Korea to teach English, and the other is considering moving to London to work for a study abroad coordinator as an RA. My entire life at Elon has involved these two in some way. The last year has not seen a day without them. Seriously. So what do I do next year? Make new friends, obviously. I know this sounds really very petty and third grade, but the prospect of a year without my surrogate family is terribly daunting.

In the last few weeks, I've learned more about myself and my friends than in the lifetime before that. I have found a strength in their unconditional love that I thought only existed in bloodlines. I was so wonderfully wrong.

I've always been a firm believer that true friends never leave you, that all relationships have something of value to offer and that no one ever enters or exits your life for no reason. And in today's technologically advanced, effortlessly connected society, it's next to impossible to lose touch. But nothing beats a late-night movie, a drive to Greensboro or Sunday night dinners.

I've never been very good with change, and I think part of the reason is I never anticipate it very well. I never expect it until it's bumping noses with me, pulling my hair and pinching me, begging me to take notice.

I find myself today wishing I could pull back a bit on the reigns. But putting a stop on life isn't living, and legs were meant to act as more than just pillars.

So I must move along with the changes, embrace the futures of my friends and myself, and know that in this Lion King-coined circle of life, there is no such thing as an end.