Growing Up

Sunday night, we had dinner with friends and talked of grown up things. Where we were going to live after we graduated and moved from this small, Idaho town. Plans for jobs and health insurance. Things I never gave much thought while in high school.

I have several friends from high school who are making plans to marry, some have been married for a while and are now having children. We no longer make plans to hang out over breaks from school. We are growing up, starting our own lives outside of our home town. We are making plans for new home towns.

In a way it's sad and in a way it's scary. And in every way it's exciting. Having a child has thrown us into this new phase of life. Has made us more ready than ever to be out of this college town bubble, out in the real world. Ready for life after 9-5 classes and part-time, minimum wage jobs.

I have grown so much since I graduated from high school. I've moved across the country on my own, married a wonderful man, and become a mother. There are times when I hardly recognize that girl with the cap and gown and have to search to find the pieces of her in the person I am today.

As we enter our last year at BYU-Idaho, our last year in Rexburg, the last year we will spend as young, married college students, I can feel more changes coming. Bigger changes than deciding to go work for Disney World or switching majors. Changes that will make me grow and learn and become more. Changes that, years from now, when I look back at the girl I am today, will have made that barely married, new-to-motherhood, art student almost unrecognizable.

Changes that I hope will never make me too grown up to enjoy a pillow fight with my children.