Maturity and adulthood

Spent almost the intire yesterday together with my mum, two cousins S and L, S's boyfriend M and their 6month old daughter J. It was a long tiering, social and fun day. We all ate (except L and J) at a chinese restaurant in town, baked chockolat Christmas sweets, and I played DS and watched the animated film Wall-E with M.

When going home about half eleven in the evening I marvelled at the fact that I didn't feel that much uncomfortable in this company nowadays as I remember doing only a couple of years back. Things changed when I whent to Ireland au-pairing for Brenda. Things changed in many ways by that. I litterary felt like I grew a few inches and though I was nervous when my cousins came to visit I didn't anticipate it as I used to and I've never done that again. Mum says I matured and became an adult on Ireland and so reached the same level as them but that's not quite how I feel.

What I feel is this: Ireland and all that happened there taught me that my wings could bare me, that I was ready to fly. That gave me some courage and pride, I gained selfconfidence again and knew it was OK to be who I am. Since my wings are strong enough to fly with then I should also be good enough the way I am. Of course I'm not always as selfsecure and standfast, but I know somewhere that I don't have to be like them anymore, I don't have to be a grown-up heteronormative, social neuratype to have a saying! It's good enough to be a black-clad strange and supposedly neurotype figure. Perhaps mum is right and this knowledge makes me more mature and grown-up but I can only relate to the maturety. Of course one matures with every new experience and knowledge we choose to take to our hearts, but does it make us adults? No, I think not. I don't think adulthood is a state of mind, maturity is (but that's a discussion I'll probably lose against myself ;). What I want to say is that since Ireland I no longer think that I have to be like my cousins to be equal, it doesn't matter what they or mum expects me to be; I am who I am, as I said so often in 7-9th grade without reflecting over what that meant. Now I know what it means and I also know that if they don't like it, it still doesn't make me less than they are and so I should not be afraid of them. And that is a good thing.