Independent variable.

My mom called me a grown up the other day. 

Grown up. Adult. On my own (as my grandmother so "lovingly" likes to remind us). 
Yes, I am 26 days away from legally being an adult, but my family has started acknowledging me as an adult, an independent factor in the family dynamic.

Holy crap. 

Lets stop and look at this for a moment, shall we? I do not feel like I should be considered a "grown up". My mom should still be telling I'm too young to date boys and I should have to ask her permission before I go somewhere and she should still be driving me there. I shouldn't be making plans and living on my own and having my own fridge to put magnets on and open to find my roommate has filled it with Hot Pockets. I shouldn't be one of those cousins that you don't know if they'll be at the beach or home for Thanksgiving or not because their schedule is not dependent on their family anymore.
I feel like just yesterday I was a kid. I feel like I should still be playing Indians and getting mad at my brother for making the Barbies jump off the roof instead of going to the parties I pretended they were having. The other day, we were watching these old family videos from when my cousin and I were probably six years old, and I was running behind her screaming her name and feeding a goat with her. THAT is how old I feel. 
Instead, I'm a college student handling her own life and figuring out what in the world I want to do (or more like what I'm supposed to do/called to do, whatever you wanna call it. All I know is Jesus is handling it.) and trying to survive a life filled with cafeteria food, the "flawless walrus", and new-found-independence crazed young people. And now I have a potentially huge change coming up that will change a lot of things.
Oh, and I am ready to know where I'm going this summer. I've gotten past how weird it'll be to be a member of a new team that isn't Team Romania and I'm just ready to be fund raising and praying and getting ready. I want to go and love and be impacted as much as I impact and hug people for Jesus. Basically, I want another chance to do what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life instead of all of this collegiate crap. 
And I can, because apparently I'm a grown up. 

Time flies way too quickly. My best friends younger brother is in the class level I considered my best year of high school, and now I realized how many years ago that was. The other day, I didn't even recognize one of the guys I went to both middle school and high school with when I saw his new pictures on Facebook. Everyone I grew up with is changing and getting older and all of the sudden we aren't those weird little home school kids who eat Lunchables out under a tree or skip around a neighborhood taking on the identities of characters from The Wizard of Oz (No, I was not 5. I was in 7th grade, and I was the Cowardly Lion. I even had a tail to prove it that was made out of yellow yarn. I was cool.). We're all college students figuring out our lives and getting serious (to some extent). Do I need to mention again how weird this is? Because I'm kind of freaked out by it.


(I think that whole "Holy crap I'm getting another year old in a matter of 26 days" feeling has kicked in and made me over think everything. I apologize.)