When I Grow Up.
You don't have to know who you want to be – not at 18, and not at 33.
Nobody hands you a manual at eighteen. One day it's homework and school holidays, the next you're supposed to know what to study, where to work, what a tax form is. Those years get romanticized as freedom. Bella calls them what they often were: surviving.
What she's found since isn't a five-year plan. It's a different posture toward the question itself: trying things on with curiosity instead of panic – choosing, and choosing again. That's the balance Surrender & Decision walks through: a conscious life is neither control nor drifting, and no choice is final. You're allowed to be someone slightly different every day.
She writes it with a grin, zombie emoji included. Don't let that fool you – the ground under it is solid.
🧟♀️ Teenagers
Recently my husband and I – and then my mom too – were talking about the teenage years.
For me the stretch from 17–18 to 27 was, to put it mildly, not the most pleasant.
Most of the time you're suffering, messing up, surviving,
trying to figure out who you are, where to work, what to do with this life.
For my husband those same years – roughly the same feeling.
My mom married earlier, but she says life before marriage was no picnic either.
It seems to me life truly begins after 30.
You're no longer testing your body and psyche for durability.
You have a rough idea of what you want.
Maybe there's a marriage, kids, work you love,
or at least the sense that you've grown something inside yourself.
After 30 you're not surviving anymore – you're starting to gather the harvest –
and, importantly, you don't forget to plant anew.
Why is the teenage time so hard?
You're abruptly turned from a schoolkid with homework and school breaks into a person who's supposed to know:
who they want to be, where to apply, and what a tax certificate is 🙈😀
Nobody prepares us for adult life.
At some point they simply say:
“That's it. You're an adult. Decide for yourself.”
And I'm 33 now.
And honestly, I still don't know who I want to be when I grow up.
But it doesn't scare me anymore.
I simply switch on my inner child.
I try. I explore. I try things on.
With curiosity. Without hysterics. Sometimes – with joy.
And maybe that's the secret:
to stop searching for “who to be” –
and simply be yourself. Even if a different one every day.💕
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan