Kris Jordan

What is growing up? Is it an accumulation of time? A function of age? Was I less grown up an hour ago than I am now? Could it be the amount of laughter over the years? Or is it the perseverance through tribulations? What does it even mean to be grown up?

I think I’m a grown up. Tonight, I’ve crossed the bridge. Consider me old. I went and timidly answered a few questions at a quasi-medical web site. No big deal, right? They’ll tell me I’m over reacting, right? Yeah…

“Based on your answers, you appear to be an ideal candidate for Men’s Rogaine® Extra Strength. You’ve described the signs of hereditary hair loss, or androgenetic alopecia.”

F*(#!!! I’m 21! I’m an ideal candidate for Men’s Rogaine Extra Strength? Ideal candidate? Don’t word this like I’m in the running for winning something Mr. Rogaine. I’m losing something! My hair! And this so called game of youth! There’s no winning prize here! Crap!

So I ordered. Yea, I know. I know. I’m freaking out, right? No bald spots yet, or anything close really, and I’m ordering Rogaine. Crap! I’m old! My pillow, though, may as well be a shedding dog’s cheap cushion. Similar story with my hands after rinsing and repeating in the shower. Freaks me out a little bit. (Understatement.) I always expected to bald. Just not by 22.

So I ordered Rogaine and now I’m grown up and now I’ve digressed. So what is growing up? I can picture it like a tiny, tiny ant crawling up a giant, giant tree. Most of the time we’re marching up it one tiny ant step at a time. Most of the time the path is pretty obviously laid out in front of us. At some point the tree branches though. Decisions, decisions. Take the easy branch or the one less traveled? The knotted branch or the smooth branch? The earlier in life simple decisions are made the more wildly different the leaf you finally wind up at will be. At some points other attractive ants will be tugging you this way or that. That way or this. At some points an ant is on the wrong branch and barely has enough time to crawl back down and find another.

Maybe adulthood is the point at which most of the decisions we make aren’t going to drastically alter the makeup or direction of our lives. At some point most of one’s major life decisions are completed. Degrees are awarded. Loves are found. Babies are made. Careers are begun. At some point the anxiety of knowing personal decisions can craft the course of your life is transformed into a secure comfort when these decisions have been executed and the sails of the ship are in place. Maybe that is growing up.

With graduate school around the corner I’m a little ant approaching another huge branch. How different would my life be if I were accepted at UNC or Washington or Cornell or Stanford or Berkeley or MIT? Who will I meet, who will I leave behind? Would I even like living outside of North Carolina? On the west coast? Big decisions, I believe. Still months away, though.

So I guess this ant hasn’t reached the grown up branch yet. Why it is an ideal candidate for Rogaine Extra Strength, though, who knows. It’s a pretty messed up world out there. Especially in this neck of the woods.