Maturity - ?

Throughout our young lives we constantly hear things like, "you will have to grow up" or "take care of your responsibilities."
Really, what exactly does this mean?

First of all, why grow up, totally, in all aspects of your psyche? I love being able to be a huge kid and go hell bent for leather into the unknown.
I also love being an adult and paying my bills, and having an adult life that offers so many choices. I guess I like balancing those two. Growing up does have its advantages but keeping my kid parts makes adulthood more fun.

As far as taking care of my responsibilities, I am doing that too. However, I think maturity is a lot about facing your day-to-day reality. You can't just ignore things and think, "I will deal with that later," or "if I wait long enough maybe it will go away."
It does not go away or get better, but instead, only worse.

Although I will take care of my mom for however long and to whatever end, I have days where I want to be 4 again and say, "you can't make me!!" and run screaming from the DFW metroplex. In looking back, if I had not turned around and faced that whole situation, it would have been so much worse.

Thus, is "growing up" or "being mature" about acting a different way or loosing your kiddo sense of fun? I don't think so. Actually, my child's sense of adventure is what keeps me sane especially dealing with my mom. (How else do you laugh at Baking Shoes??) The maturity and the brutal honesty with myself is what allows me to remain "one" with the kid parts.

Yes, brutal honesty. It is hardest to be honest with one's self. I think this is the greatest challenge in maturity. For if you are not honest with yourself, you will never be honest with anyone else. Even if you think you are or you think you want to be.