On growing up

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.  ~Chili Davis

I had to laugh at myself the other day. Chatting to my crazy friends, I quipped "Wow. I can just imagine us twenty years from now - as grown ups - talking all this smack. What will our kids think?"

I laughed. At 28 years-old, I'm still not a grown-up? I sure as hell don't feel like one. What is a grown-up? The idea of it still daunts me. There just seems to be so much attached to it. What does it really mean? I find it terrifying. It seems as if in order to truly be 'grown-up', you have to let go of some(every)thing.

Everyone's familiar with the bible passage that says, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Is that what's expected of me? To put away childish things? But what if I *like* my childish things? 


What if I'm still insecure and like to be affirmed? What if I still want to have it easy; party all night;  Does that make me any less of a 'grown-up'? That phrase in itself implies a definite state - unmistakable and completely measurable. Almost like you need to have taken on a new form, like a catterpillar to a butterfly. The end of the cycle; fully evolved. 


But is that what it is really? Why a grown-up? How about a grown-higher?
Do we ever stop growing up?