I don't know why I should be writing this late into the night, except perhaps that I just haven't written anything for a long time.

I suppose that's what growing up does to you. growing up brings us to reality, starkly. for someone who is a dreamer and an idealist, it can never be easy. but nobody ever said that it would be, i just wanted it to be colored all rosy and perfect.I wanted to see things my own way, wanted to believe in things the way I wanted them to be. Surely, my future was all out there, waiting for me. My wings were unclipped, ready to soar in the horizon's glow. And I surely believed in all the Amanda Bradley Hallmark cards. After all, if one could write of things like that, then surely one could dream, believe, and hope that it could all ever happen.

But it was so different. The world fell short of my great expectations. Surely, this couldn't be what all those speakers at my school program said; surely this couldn't be the way the world turned. And I had heard so much of all those "the future is yours for the taking." It left me confused, uncertain, frustrated, and even afraid. Frustrated because everyone seemed to accept and live it, and afraid that I might become like them. Confused and uncertain because I could see in their eyes the pity and the mockery at my naivete. I felt deceived, disillusioned, and angry. That's the way it works, honey. It's the way the world turns. You're just so young, just starting but you will eventually learn that it's just how it is. I couldn't accept what people said because I was too stubborn, too idealistic, and wanting to cling to my beliefs. I didn't want to believe that this was it. That I would end up like so many of us: cynical, world-weary, and resigned. I wanted to fight the good fight, to prove that there was a truth to all those words the speakers and the Hallmark cards ever said.

The fight was not easy. The road seemed ever so long and frustration tormented me. I could feel that the flame of hope had dwindleddown to a tiny spark and it frighened me greatly. I could hear myself speaking those same words and I was astonished to hear that it came so easily to my lips. It was so very easy to just fall into the crowd. After all, with the tide going so strongly against me, if I did not swim with them, surely I would drown? I swallowed my pride, my words, and my resolve. My fight was over.

And so I became one of them, the very people whom I had once so despised. The utter mockery of it. And I was amazed at how easy it was to be one of them. To feel nothing and learn not to care. To be cynical and see nothing. To harden oneself so that one becomes impervious to everything. There sure was a big enough room for feelings of drudgery, discontent, and unhappiness. If I chose to become one with them why was I never happy? Why was there this tiny voice which struggled to be heard? Which told me that I was bringing about my ruin, and which hardened as I was, I was still crazy enough to believe in? Was I crazy if I took the chance again?

I took the chance, prepared for the worst. And I ended up living. You see, what all those Hallmark cards and speakers wrote and said all those years ago was true. The future is indeed there for the taking. But what they failed to say was that the world is steeped in reality. That the horizon is not all that gilded and that the too-heavenly future espoused to us may just be an illusion. That reality does play a part in our dreams, that it is interwovenwith life. And that we have to live with it. It has to do with how we adapt ourselves to the world. It is living knowing that some things will truly never change but accepting them. Accepting them but never becoming like them. The most important lesson I have had about growing up.

And life has truly changed. Growing up has had more meaning and isn't that bad at all. I have learned to walk at my own pace, to fit myself and all my ideals and dreams with reality. And though I don't look at my future and the world with rose-tinted glasses, I know thatgood things can still come. I guess that it might have taken me a long time to grow up, but I am glad I did.