Cancer again and growing up

Never let anyone tell you that you are living anything other than your own life. I’m still trying to adjust to the feeling of being alone, of negotiating the relationship to distant or just any number of absent other people. I think there is a fine line between growing up and maturing. I think that growing up involves finding a way to actively engage and expand while being relatively alone in the world, while maturing moreso involves the acceptance of conventions and complacencies of adulthood as laid out before you. I’ve been struck by how easy it is to slip into being mature: I always thought it to be a shock to the system, a conscious decision to start acting like an adult. Maturing is a surprisingly self-determined experience. How the hell did I become well adjusted or capable of talking to people I don’t know? Seriously. I remember writing about how much I valued my awkwardness, now I just get along. I have things, possessions that I’m attached to, people I know I want to know for life. I feel like I’m making the decisions that lead me into age-appropriate maturity, becoming responsible for myself in such a way that makes me an adult.

I liked writing about cancer because it explains how I feel about evolution (and growing up). If evolution is a result of random mutations and developments, there’s no reason to believe my body is making the right choices about developing or healing itself. Cancer is the body rebelling against itself, setting off questioning of internal consistency and shows how even our basic biology can betray us. I think that’s how I feel about the decisions I make about growing up/maturing: growing up is more cancerous, more self-critical and questioning, that subjects the negotiation of age and distance to some questioning, because its easy to betray yourself into complacency.

Duncan