Forgive Me, But I Seem To Be Not of My Age

When talking about maturity, somehow I felt that I was different. There were a lot of times when I felt that I was really a mature person of twenty years old, and most of the time, the rest were just like little kids who have not yet seen life completely.

And experience seemed to have been a witness to this, as I think. For the past 8 years, I think of myself as having dealt with life in the most complicated way possible, and this involves intense seminary formation which helped me to somehow stand on my own feet. Even until now, I handle responsibilities which seem to be that of a normal adult living his life alone. Also, my life during vacation attests to a certain level of maturity. When I am not in the seminary, I wake up at six in the morning, clean the car and the house, do the laundry, and spend the day running some important errands. Besides, I can say that I already have a worldview that is, in my own words, straight-edge: already planned, with a definite timeframe, and with a different disposition and way of looking at the world. As I have said, everything will be faced with such straight-edge and smug-faced look at the reality.

But then, as I look back at my college life, it seems that I cannot be the one I once wanted myself to be. Many times, I still found myself wearing that smug face everytime my co-seminarians and classmates make immature remarks and actions, most especially to me, when I feel insulted. "Damn kids," I would say to myself. However, most of the time, I see myself being immature, with all the pranks, the green jokes, and the verbal suckerpunches I throw. I can and enjoy at times the way I piss off people that I both love and hate. Oh, and add to that the way I use some of my time playing "Call of Duty" and "Left4Dead." Indeed, part of me that I couldn't throw away for now is the kid in me.

I would say that this is neither good nor bad. Being a kid at times is fun and reminds me of the beauty of life; however, I think that one should heed the call to be fundamentally mature, to have a serious look at world and act in ways that people would expect me to. Of course, it is important to remember that though boys grow but don't grow up, we cannot avoid the fact that we have to be men eventually.