Adulting: The Second Puberty?

      Please, we already had to deal with enough going through our first puberty.  No one told us about a second puberty! I wasn’t prepared for this.  It snuck up on me like a cold front in the middle of summer.

During our first puberty, there were the memorable classics of our voice adjustments, practical overnight growth spurts, hair…need I say more?? And of course, our ever-growing sexual curiosity.

This “second puberty” I find sometimes chooses to continues the previous puberty…more & more hair, again a shifting in voice register (but only at random and inconvenient times of course; i.e., the day before or of an interview, etc…).  I have known guys who have gone through two-three growth spurts during their lives, the last into their 20’s and being in such pain from the muscle & bone growth at that age. (I can’t imagine, I am only 4″ 11′).  Lastly, I imagine sexual curiosity matures with age 😉 .

However, there are differences that the majority of us did not encounter during our first puberty of which we are now all too familiar.

• Wrinkles for NO reason! (…let’s call them “laugh lines”)
• Aches & pains after only 20+ years?  WHY?!?
• Taking forever to gradually climb out of bed.
• Sometimes too busy to satisfy our sexual curiosity.
• Stretching has become part of the necessary morning routine – otherwise, yer fucked.
• Body parts crack for no reason as well, and if I don’t crack them it drives me nutso!
• I’ve started using creams and lotions; nightly face cream, moisturizer, & pain reliever.
• My skin is a whole different animal than it was 5-10 years ago. It decides when to break out and where…even though I already have face wash and preventative acne medication that took me 5-10 years to perfect. I think my epidermis is finally figuring out it isn’t as invincible as it thought it was.  It makes me feel unprofessional and like a teenager again; can’t we just get in the same boat for once?!?
•  Don’t even get me started on the weight that I have gained and not been able to loose lately.  I feel like I’m pretty new to this whole “Adulting” thing, but I think that’s because in my head I feel as if I’m still 21. I actually have to think for a moment when someone asks my age. Eating is one of my favorite activities, not because I’m the laziest person ever and can’t/won’t do anything else, but because I have a very precise palate – I love the taste. I love to eat and unfortunately pay the price.  My “freshman15” turned into my “college40”.  This wouldn’t be as big a deal if say I were still a freshman, with maybe a higher metabolism, yet here I am, 30+ lbs later unable to loose the weight as easily. Our bodies onto tidbits.
• One of the biggest situations I am having troubles with currently is my circadian rhythm being completely flip-flopped! For a while I thought it was – again – just me being lazy, but no, it turns out that this is normal and that typically during this phase in a human’s life they are more apt to stay awake during the nights and sleep more during the daytime. I am tired ALL the time! I want my other half a day back!!
• One other thing I found was having zero control over your body temperature! It’s almost pre-menopausal sounding, (and that’s scary)! It feels so true too. There are times when I am freezing when everyone else is comfortable, or hot. Other times when I am trying to peel off my skin and adjusting the thermostat as low as possible, others complain that I was just cold!! Which is so true.

What the fuck life?

When does this end? When do we get to just be old like we agreed to in the first place?

Is this “second puberty” the longest phase in a human’s life? I think it truly depends on the human. As I mentioned earlier, I still mentally feel as though I am 21 or so, although I am 27.  I think it is fair to say that our “second puberty” ends when “middle-age” begins (I know nothing about that, so I’m going to take a liberal guess). Please feel free to correct me. My guess is that the Adulting phase starts around 21, ending around 45.

      This “second puberty” is a natural cycle of a human’s life.  Why is it that people are recently having such a hard time accepting what comes with life?

I’m Drowning.

On my second cup of coffee at 1:54 pm. I don’t even know what I am doing here any more. There are times I get lost in the music I listen to or Netflix, but truly, I am chasing – running away from the thoughts that leave me cold and empty. Mundane things like organizing, and reading are no longer tasks that bring me joy because my mind flows towards darker places.

It’s silly, I think, that I’ve held on. I should just put it out of my mind and move on. I am no longer motivated to do the things that need to be done and I want to resort to uglier ideas.

There is a plant on my desk that has no water. I can see the life being drained from it daily; it dies along with my heart. As much as I think to water it every day, I look at it and then look at myself and am just glad that I am getting out of bed. I can at least check one thing off of my list.

I look at my tassel from my cap and I don’t feel overwhelmed or proud. It brings no sense of accomplishment because the bigger part of me that was there, the part that I took for granted the entire time, is now gone.

I look out my window and wonder if I’ll ever get another chance to make things right. It hurts my heart to know that I hurt someone else – and that this is not the first time.

I’m drowning in my emotions, but my insides feel like they have been carved out.

Moving on..

I knew there was a reason I woke up on time today.  Did my hair, and made myself look good today.  They say when you look good on the outside, you make yourself feel better on the inside (it’s true).  I’m not speaking as a beauty guru or a model wannabe. I’m speaking as a normal girl who knows the power of psychology and positive thinking.

Wake up in the morning and tell yourself first thing that “Today’s going to be a good day!” instead of immediately thinking of last night’s episode of True Blood or recent best friend drama. The more you work on changing your frame of mind, the more it will change you from the inside out.

When I wash my hair, I have to wait an entire half a day before it dries completely so I can comb it out. The salon chemicals make my straw-straight hair frizz into an afro when touched by water. Sad, but true. This is why I was determined after my shower this morning to do something with my hair that didn’t require brushing it out to make it look good before work.

My go-to, on days like today is “the hat”. Just leave that rat’s nest for later. Or put it up in a sporty bun with the tangles hidden underneath. So gross.

Today I was determined to have nice hair…I remembered a style I used to whip up quick when my hair was greasy and looked good no other way than in these rolled up rows. By twisting my hair on top of itself in sections, it came together at the back into a bun and turned out looking like a homecoming hairdo with a modern “lazy” look…almost exactly what I was going for…

Great day at work and I was supposed to meet a friend afterwards.

You could say my friend and I have had our fair share of “past”. Recently, we’ve not been close at all and I’m glad to say that i don’t honestly remember much why. I was soooo angry at her for such a long time, about something so intense. I was going through some internal conflicts of my own and I needed some space maybe.

A couple of weeks ago I decided on a whim to call her and wish her a happy birthday because through all of our differences, we still had so much together…I wasn’t going to be the asshole and not call her on her birthday. She didn’t return my call or the other two after that. I was beginning to think that she didn’t want to talk, but knowing her, she just hadn’t gotten around to it yet, I just needed to be patient.

She called the other day and we decided to hang out today and it turns out we were both scared as shit of each other.

I thought she was going to yell at me and she thought I was going to do the same. She was afraid we weren’t friends anymore, after 17 years she’d have to of done something pretty awful. Sure I was getting tired of some of things that we were going through, but it wasn’t enough.

I said some harsh things to her in the past, and I’m looking forward to leaving it there, moving on and looking forward to the future. With her and everything else.