Responsibilities

My friend turned 23 yesterday. We all went into the city to celebrate. It was a reunion of sorts as we all gathered together for our common love of the birthday girl. I reconnected with people I haven't seen in weeks, months, years. It was lovely. It was a reminder of who I once was and who I have grown to be. It was a reminder of all I had given up by moving away from that life, but also a reminder of all I had gained by leaving. It solidified my faith in my choices, in myself, in knowing what was best for me. It made me feel less alone.

Not just because the time that had passed between us didn't seem to matter. Not just because it was a reconfirmation that my friends will always be my friends. Not just because it was so easy to slip back into the resonating sounds of their laughter, but because they too, had felt so much of what I've been feeling.

I apologized for being a bad friend, for not keeping in touch, for not knowing the details of their lives. They apologized for all the same reasons. It's just part of growing older, of existing in our daily lives, of having to slightly loosen the tight grips of the past to move forward. It's just part of life.

But there were also those who hadn't seemed to move forward. There were those who were still living the same way we had all been a few years ago. There were those who I saw as a reflection of what I would have been had I not been so desperate to evolve. And it was in seeing them, listening to them, that I discovered a new sense of confidence in myself, in my life, that I hadn't known existed. It was in picturing that alternate life that I conceived a new love for the one I have now, the one I chose, the one I am living. For the first time in a while, I was grateful to be removed from the stereotypical twenty-something world. I was grateful to have grown up.

For so long I have cursed my need to be responsible, but this morning I awoke with the small epiphany that I have responsibilities because I have a life that I love, that I want to protect. I cannot risk everything in the way some of my friends can. I have people who depend on me. I have an obligation to myself to be the best person that I can be, to wake each morning and be there for my little students, to set an example, to be a good friend. I am responsible because it only takes a moment, one bad decision, one wrong turn, to undo everything I've worked so hard to achieve. I am responsible for my future. I am responsible for my life.

I think about the way, only a few posts ago, I had wanted so desperately to give up adulthood, to cast aside my wisdom, to drown out the deep echo of my conscience. I think about those moments last night when it reared its ugly head, when it told me not to get into the car or participate in certain things or push myself to a breaking point. I think about how greatly I longed to silence it, to stop feeling like I was no longer capable of unbridled fun, to stop feeling like I was above it all.

But I have gotten to the point where I am above it all. And perhaps that last statement makes me a conceded snob, but it doesn't change the way I feel about it. I do know how to have fun. I AM fun, but I also know the importance of working hard and looking out for myself through good decisions. I know that there is more to my life than just me. I know that what I do, as much as what I don't do, effects others.

And I owe it to them - I owe it to myself - to do what I know in my heart to be right. I owe it to all of us to be responsible, and I am grateful for such an obligation, to know it, to feel it. For the first time in a long time, I am grateful to be the way I am.

So it was then, on the night of her birthday, that a small part of me became reborn.