I'm a Grown-Up Now!

Let me just clear a few things up before we start.

1. I am thirty, soon to be thirty-one.
2. Every cent I makes goes to college debt.
3. Yes, I live with my mother.

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest...

I've lived with my mother, except for some brief time at college and overseas, since I was nine, and up to this point, I have not minded.  Now, there are some interesting family dynamics.  My parents divorced when I was like eight months old.  My brother and I lived with dad, but mom was there to take care of us all day.  She was there when I got up and there to put me to bed at night.  I had a really good friend in kindergarten who moved away to Texas with her family as many families did at that time.  (Fisher Controls  moved a whole gob of jobs south.)   This started a trend in my life.  I had a few friends who either moved or we went to different schools, then later I had friends who constantly stabbed each other in the back...really a toxic group.  My point is, for a lot of years, mom tried to be my friend as well as my mom.  She really tried to make sure I felt ok and to build me up.

This really didn't work out well.  Bless her, she tried.  But we were so much alike, and we both had problems, and I was so depressed...we fought a lot.  We are both messy, at least together, we both stay up too late during the week and sleep too late on the weekends, and we both medicate ourselves with food.  I never had to work.  Not at school, not at home.  (Now, I've had jobs, I have to work to support myself, I'm talking chores/household stuff.)  Now I don't know how to keep a tidy home, and I had a hell of a time applying myself in college when I wanted to, because I didn't know how.  My brother was the genius, but I got by with pretty good grades and very little effort, so I didn't know how to dig in and really study.

Fast forward fifteen years.  Mom is still trying to be my best friend, still trying to make sure my life is bearable.  Over the last couple years, I really would have liked to get out on my own, have my own place, have my own life.  Unless I work five jobs, it's just not possible.  Lately, I've been getting restless, and for some odd reason mom has gotten very clingy.  I feel like she can't keep track of anything without me, although I know she is fully capable.  I think it's a subconscious way of keeping me close.  She's upset that my brother is talking about moving to Colorado, and she wants to keep me close.  I know she enjoys my company, but I think we have become too dependent on one another.

Today, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I NEED MY OWN SPACE!

The other thing I've been thinking about is my faith.  I believe in God and I always will.  The problem comes with other people.  Perhaps some of it stems from the fact that I put my all into a church for about twelve years, it was my family, my life, and then all of the sudden, I can't even get people to return my phone call.  Then, Saturday night, I was hanging out with my fifteen year old cousin and we watched Joyful Noise.  (It was not bad.  Little slow in the middle.)  I looked at Queen Latifah's character, pretty closed minded, everything was very black and white.  Then you have stuff like gay marriage.  No matter how you or I personally feel about all things "gay", this country was founded on religious freedom.  Do we really have the right to tell people they can't get married?  (Ok, yes, there should be age limits, and animals should be off limits.)  I guess what I'm saying is, I don't want to be a cookie cutter person.  I'm not going to just blindly believe things because someone, even someone I trust and respect, tells me it's so.  And I don't like those people, like Queen Latifah's character, who are closed-minded in that this it's what's right, and that's that.

Maybe that makes me a bad Christian (I've never claimed to be a good one), but I believe what is more important is to love people, whether they are different from me, or not.  That is what is going to make a difference in people's lives.  I don't have to agree with or like someone's choices or lifestyle to love them and respect them as a brother (or sister) in humanity.  I understand why people are turned of by Christianity.  People get together talking about love and acceptance and holiness, and then treat other people no differently.  I am guilty of that.

At this point in my life, I want to have my faith and beliefs, and discover for myself the truth.  I don't want to be spoon fed.

I feel like I'm actually becoming myself.  For so long I've been someone to kind of morphs to be different things with different people.  Not that my core beliefs changed, but that used or didn't use words according to whom I was with, etc.  Time to become myself, and be myself no matter what.

And that involves having my own space.

I still love you mom, we just need to learn how to live without each other.