Growing Up

Like most other kids, I was continually anxious to become an adult. I mean, that is what everything in my life was culminating towards. Fourteen years of sports, hundreds of tests and exams, numberless honors and advanced placement classes, hours of volunteer work, and more extracurricular activities than I could handle. Nearly from birth, I was working to develop skills and gain knowledge that would get me into a suitable university.

Ok, I made it. Now what?

Almost two weeks ago, I walked into the College of Fine Arts and Communications here at BYU, and walked out not three minutes later with a different major.

Last year I was making money dishwashing. Last semester I was making pizzas and frying chicken nuggets at Walt Disney World. Now I’m sitting in a small cubical typing away at my keyboard, writing updates and small articles for BYU Magazine.

In August I flew out of Seattle, not fully comprehending that it was the last time I would live there for any extended period of time. I dropped everything and moved as far away as possible within the country: Florida. And after five short months, I am settled once again in Utah.

Faster than we know it, everything is changing. Before I could even understand where my life was taking me, I was already there.

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Today I decide to take a few short minutes to step off of this high speed train and simply watch it as it shoots past me in a blur. I look around at my life, not entirely sure how I got here, and with no idea as to where the train will take me next. Yet despite all of the confusion, I am satisfied. Even though it may travel through a few dark tunnels, pass over some extremely tall mountains, endure through storm after storm, and stop to drop off a few loved passengers here and there, I feel assured that I am going to love where this train takes me. And who knows, maybe we’ll pick up a few straggling travelers in a stop or two, with the hope that some of them will stay on this train until it reaches its final destination.

Yes, I am growing up. Yes, I am traveling on a train moving at a dangerously fast speed. No, I do not know where it is going. So now what?

I look up to see the train slowing to a halt. Before it takes off without me, I step off the platform and into the coach. I find a seat next to a kind stranger, and look out the window to see the vast landscape roll by once again.