Ten years ago I was 22, and the same age as my coworker. At 22, I lived with my drug addict boyfriend in a one bedroom apartment that looked closer to the beginnings of hoarders than a place an adult slept at night. We had two cats who were my fur babies but even then I knew it wasn’t the same. Not always, but often enough, I thought I was an adult doing all kinds of adulting. Yes, I worked at the same place I do now. No, I never seemed to have enough money to always keep the electricity on and to buy food. It was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. 

Now, at 32, I’m telling my coworker that she’s still just growing up. That doesn’t mean she was like me at 22. Nothing like me in the least. She has a child close to the same age as mine. She is a single mom and pays a mortgage to a respectful home. She cares about herself and those around her. We could not have been more different at 22. It’s a shame I wasn’t more like her.

So why do I tell my coworker that she is still just growing up when in so many ways she’s just as mature as I am now? Sometimes living through things makes you understand things a little better. Like just how much it bothers your mother when you mess up as a teenager. Sure, the girl with my initials gets that there’s some relationship between how she feels as a mother to a four year old and how her mother felt towards her, but she is not far enough away from the teenage years to get a good perspective that just because things can happen, that a mother will not do anything in her power to make things go in the right direction. But we talked, and my coworker understands. It’s not that she doesn’t relate as a mother, but sometimes it’s just connecting the dots.

This is what I’m good at, connecting the dots, gradually. I am never completely ok with who I am. I take into account everything and everyone around me. I try to look deep within to try to find out why. I look for links, things that are the same, things that are different, and to identify the things that are impossible for me to understand. From all of this over analyzing every detail of my life, it helps me to communicate understanding. Understanding is the gateway to knowledge and peace.

This blog is started to help communicate understanding to others. As a humanist, it is my goal in life to bring people closer together and to reduce conflict that destroys relationships. This blog is meant to communicate the development I have gone through and continue, along with stories of the development I have come in contact with around me. 

Please, leave me comments that ask questions and help me become better at helping others. Thanks for being with me through the developing.