Growing Pains

when we exit our mothers we cry out loud, I like to think its from us being exposed to an infected world. as we grow we continue to cry but it tends to change a little bit as a boy you’re taught: big boys go potty in the big boy potty big boys use their words big boys handle their own problems big boys don’t cry they always just use the term big boys, or pre-teens, or teenagers, or the one I dislike the most young man. I hate it because they try to separate us from the adults of the world, but in a way that tells you you’re right there, just not yet as if we’re walking a tightrope to our adulthood and if we make one mistake we might not get there. It’s said as if we don’t face the same problems they do, as if we’re grape juice and they’re Chardonnay as if we don’t wake up in the morning to: the same world, the same news, the same stress, the same food, the same love, the same celebrities, and the same politicians. So we cry internally, our screams only driving us insane, only affecting our sleep patterns, only causing us to find new ways to chase them away. The world forces us into a prison of our own skin, when we try to break free only leaving us scarred and tortured. Growing up to me isn’t necessarily about the end goal of adulthood, Growing to me is about how we deal with our growing pains. Learning: it’s okay to cry out loud, it’s okay to ask for help, when you don’t know the right words to say it’s probably better to be quiet, and sometimes when you can’t find a bathroom you should just pee on a tree. Growing up is about breaking out of what we’re told to do as kids, it’s about becoming our own person, not about being who we’re meant to be already. Growing up is making your own mistakes and messes, but then remembering to clean it up. Growing up is rough and bumpy and not at all easy. Growing up really is just a bunch of grey area between the black and white, it’s an imperfect mosh-posh of good and bad,and pleasure and pain.