Growing Pains

As a kid, when you go through growth spurts, you get pains in your legs from your muscles and bones growing right before your eyes! That’s why they call it growing “Pains” it hurts, but it’s also awesome to feel yourself getting bigger and stronger. As an adult, we too go through a different kind of growing pains.

At the age of 25 my fiancée and I bought a house, that is something that not everyone can say. I am very blessed and excited to be able to say that. One thing that is not included with the mortgage, was the added stress of owning a home. With every new step we take in life there are clauses that come along with it. It is like you can’t have the good without some form of “if and or but” about it.  As I step into this new world of homeownership I can’t help but feel like an adult. Up until now, TBH I have felt like a child on some levels. Maybe it is my naive sense of life, my childlike hope and spirit or maybe it is just a bit of immaturity that I don’t want to admit? The question remains but the statement is true “We are homeowners!”

While I am still settling into the idea, I am also settling into my new responsibilities.

Do new things terrify you or excite you like a new challenge?

This new chapter in my life is so exciting I may even be scared of it. I have learned in my 25 years, not to compare myself but that mindset is easier said than achieved. No sooner had a bought a house that I was back to being jealous of a couple looking at houses twice as expensive as ours. I don’t know why I do this to myself, are my accomplishments not enough? Am I not proud enough of what I have been able to achieve, or do I just always want more? Studies have shown that millennials are more focused on buying a house than most other life steps; getting married or having babies. We want what we want and we want to be treated like adults, regardless of our marital status or title. I come from a generation who wants it all and wants it fast, followed by a generation who wants even more and even faster.

I can’t help but wonder, are millennials hustlers or just entitled?

I think the answer is this, we are more motivated. We see these people on Instagram with beautiful houses, bodies and bank accounts and we want it! Those images are more in our face than any other generation. While our parents saw it on TV and in magazines, I don’t think it ever felt as real or as attainable so they were more content with what they were doing and just doing better than their parents. While we want to do better than our parents, we also want to do better than that beautiful stranger vacationing in Greece, lounging on her beautiful couch and showing off her new Louis bag ever so subtly.

Learning to follow our own path and drown out the distractions is one of the hardest things, I struggle with it on a daily basis. My mentality is becoming, “post for yourself” “write for yourself” “live for yourself”.

I strive to be proud of myself, work hard to please myself and without the comparison to others, am I happy with myself?

I dare you to ask yourself the same and tell me, what makes you feel the pains of growing?

-ML