How to Grow Up- for Dummies?

Hey guys :) it has clearly been ages since I last posted! Reason being? These last few months have been milestones in my life, milestones that I can barely keep up with myself! The thing is, I have attempted numerous times to explain myself, yet each attempt has entwined to a vicious cycle of failure and I have now figured out why. These milestones that I have experienced, the milestones that seem indescribable, baffling, even unfathomable, are the the building blocks to growing up. Therefore, in order to write about these milestones, I must write about how I have grown up. So here is my personal, possibly formulaic (but probably not because I'm terrible at math) account/manual: How to Grow Up- for Dummies.

For starters, last year I learned about a psychoanalyst known as Erik Erikson. He had two major themes:

1. The world gets bigger as we go along; and


2. Failure is cummulative.

In short, Erikson believed that life is a series of challenges and lessons which help us to become who we are today. Hence in Erikson terms, I would be classified under two stages: identity vs. role confusion and intimacy vs. isolation. Identity vs. role confusion theorizes the idea that when one is between the age block of 12-18, one's development relies on what has been done to determine what to do. Consequently, this must explain why the events partaken in my life have influenced what I do and who I am. On the other hand, when one is between the age block of 18- 35, one is categorized under Erikson's theory of intimacy vs. isolation. This hypothesizes that at this stage in one's life, there is a desire to find satisfying relationships, which would then form intimacy. However if intimacy is not successful, isolation occurs. So consequently, I have lost many relationships in my life; and truth be told, I have aspired and pictured myself forming strong, genuine relationships in college. Therefore, if both stages are so applicable that they are textbook definitions of who I am and who I will be, then is that really it?

The thing is, I would hate to think that life is that simple, that I am that simple. In fact, a good friend of mine shared a concept that in order to define is to limit. So now with this notion, I believe that there is no single, dependent, probable way to define growing up. Because considering the statement above, to define how to grow up is to limit how to grow up. Therefore, the joke's on me. I just tried to sum up a personal, definitely not formulaic (proving how awful I am at math) account/manual to growing up. I just tried to define growing up, and by doing so I may have just limited myself to growing up.

Then again in perspective, that right there just emphasized what growing up is all about. I challenged myself to define growing up, and the lesson is that I simply cannot. Aka, this is another failed attempt to add to my entwined vicious cycle. Let me just leave it at this:

"I don't like defining myself. I just am."
-Britney Spears