True Marks of Becoming a "Grown-Up"

Now that I'm a "grown-up," it's time for me to go to college.

College is a canyon of mountainous buildings, each marked with a letter of the alphabet,

Each made up of halls, upon halls, upon halls, upon halls...

Its rooms are numerically labeled, since their quantity is altogether too vast to use commonplace names.

Students with identification numbers akin to those of livestock,

Procedurally, collectively make their way to where they need to go like ants in an anthill,

Becoming more and more dehumanized by the second.

And here I am, not yet attending, but still caught in a web of paperwork, deadlines, and requirements.

I feel so small, so helpless, as if I'm a child being told to pick up a gun and step into a war zone.

Isn't that ironic?

Nothing has made me feel more childish than becoming a "grown-up."

When I was a little kid, I thought life as a "grown-up" would be blissful,

I would finish school, get a job, get married, have kids...

That those would be the true marks of becoming a "grown-up."

I didn't understand that it would be confusing, treacherous, and would make me desire to be a child again.

But I think it's precisely that shift in understanding that shows my growth as a person.

My mind no longer dwells in an idealistic, unrealistic space, but it still acknowledges that turmoil isn't all there is.

There is guidance from those with experience, from those who care, from those who want me to succeed in my life as a "grown-up."

Therefore, I resolve to believe that this feeling of childlike lostness, 

And my acknowledgment of both adversity and advisors,

Are the true marks of becoming a "grown-up."

Of growing and glowing up into the excellency waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

This poem is about: 
Me

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