Is This Growing Up?

Last week, I flew east to Atlanta to see The 1975 in concert. And then drove to Nashville to see The 1975 in concert, the very next day.

This weekend, I will drive to San Diego and Los Angeles to, yes, see The 1975 in concert.

My equally-invested friend and I did these same shenanigans in 2019, bopping around to a handful of venues to bop to our favorite songs when I was but a darling 26 year-old. 

But.

But!

As much fun as I’ve had at these recent shows, things feel… different. I could have, actually, been just as content seeing this tour only once, rather than four times.

Who even AM I?!

“Is this what growing up is?” I asked my therapist. “Am I BORING now?!”

You see, in my twenties (what a terrifying phrase that I can now use: “in my twenties”), I was a girl always looking for that next hit of travel or music-fueled adrenaline. I flew to the UK to see Coldplay. I took unpaid leave from my first job so I could spend two flabbergasting weeks in New Zealand. I spent three days driving across the country to the Grand Canyon, only to immediately fly home on a red eye from Phoenix so I could return to work on Monday. I stayed two weeks in a hostel dorm room in London with twenty (20!) other women.

It was all worth it.

But now?

Now, I don’t necessarily feel the pressure to fill my calendar with travels and shows. Now, I am a happy little clam spending a simple afternoon writing these words in a coffee shop. 

Does this mean I am no longer fun? No longer adventurous? 

Am I becoming a — GASP!! — certified FUDDY DUDDY?!

Maybe.

Or maybe it is that I am no longer running. Maybe I am no longer seeking escape through plane or pit tickets.

You see, in my twenties (there I go again with that phrase), daily anxiety was my baseline, and sadness and doubt my regular companions. Don’t get me wrong, I had happiness, too, lest you think that I was exclusively a Sad Girl. But I stayed alert for flight deals and concert announcements, impatient to secure another getaway, an attempt to run from whatever worry happened to be on my mind’s seasonal menu.

But now?

Now, I don’t need a getaway, because I’m not trying to get away from anything.

There’s a life here in the desert that I don’t want to leave.

This desert year is teaching me to love the small spaces of life, those areas absent of euphoria. The ordinary, unremarkable moments. Bedtime at 9pm. The sunrise over the McDowells. The sound of sand crunching under boots. The smell of the Sonoran after it rains. Stories swapped over a split pitcher of margs.

I will always love looking out over earth from 35,000 feet and dancing to my favorite British bands. It just happens that I love the life in between, too.

Perhaps this isn’t growing up or growing old.

Perhaps this is just growth.

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