Maturity

Ben had just made the bed. In response, I immediately marched across the top of it and stared him in the face (a rare occasion as my husband is 6'5"). My playful eyes were met with a highly annoyed yet handsome hazel pair, only furthering my delight in my deviousness. "Why do I find immaturity so much fun right now?" I laughed a laugh of a young girl caught between princess and witch.  I kissed him, jumped off the bed, and hopped back to the kitchen where I resumed my grown-up duties.

Tuesday was the free day at the De Young museum in San Francisco.  My cousin James joined us. As we walked among the art and the artifacts, our conversation moved us through our own personal time-lines as well. We stopped in the sculpture garden and sat in a rounded room reminiscent of Star Wars, the home where Luke grew-up. James spoke of the design of the structure allowing for relationship between the horizontal and the vertical. I have always appreciated our talks. At lunch, over smoked turkey sandwiches and minestrone soup - a great deal for six dollars, we ventured into the topic of maturity. James' artist friend had joined us; he spoke of how he honestly feels "retarded in the maturation process" at least in the terms set by society.  The lifestyle that the professional artist often must succumb to before his/her endeavors are meet with financial recognition does not allow for one to put away money for retirement, make a down payment for a home, or even just pay off one's loans for that matter. Does a job that makes such an adequate income equate maturity?  If so, Ben and I are definitely immature as well.

I shared that as a woman coming into my thirties I felt that I too felt impeded in my maturing process. Not yet married as I left the twenties and not having any potential prospects at the time, I wondered how I would define that next stage of my life. No, I do not think that marriage equates maturity but this is what I was sensing around me.  Without marriage, what was the next marker in my life as a woman? (I know many very mature single women and I wonder how they would answer the question.)  James spoke of our natural physical development as well and how that plays into maturity. It was noted too that marriage does cause one to constantly think of someone other than oneself so this brings on a forced maturity in some.  Not to mention having children, the full responsibility of another life...We talked about equating maturity with the degree of responsibility you have.  Our conversation was very brief on the subject but it did leave me wondering about how we define maturity.

In my undergraduate studies, I focused on early adolescent development, ages 12-14 - the middle school years.  I think we go through a similar cycle with more developed variations again in our late twenties, a second adolescence of sorts,  or maybe the process has just been retarded. (I don't know where I heard this but it is said that today's thrity-year-olds were a few years ago twenty-year-olds in terms of level of maturity. Maybe it was just a group of moms who came up with this in order to understand why their boys were still living at home.) I also have recently been thinking about spiritual development, by this I mean how we come into our understanding of God and who we are in relation to him. Perhaps the growth in spiritual understanding can be parallel to what we experience as adolescents.

Early adolescents tend to identify themselves by their surroundings or rather who they surround (or don't surround) themselves with.  Moving away from the identity of "I am so-and-so's child",  they move towards "I am So-and-So's friend."   This is why adolescent groups are so strong and very cruel at times. They define themselves by saying "I am like you" and "I am definitely not like you!"

I see Christians doing this as well with their Christianity,  including me. Ben and I recently had a conversation with someone who no longer calls herself Christian because she does not see herself matched up to her parents' Christianity.  She also points to others she is not like. And eventually, I am sure, she will find a group that she is like. "This is me!" she will conclude and through it she will find her own understanding. When I first started thinking about the adolescent development in parallel with spiritual development, it was right after Ben and I had breakfast with her. As I shared my thoughts with Ben,  he asked me about the next stage, the final stage of development. According to the studies, adolescence ends around 21. In this stage, they may now seek their parents advice and even begin to relate to them more as friends. Their peer group becomes smaller with a few close friends.  They have answered the "Who am I?" question.  It is almost as if they now have a true sense of belonging for they can belong without that desperate need to belong for one's own self preservation - with their parents or with their peers.  And maybe this is the way with my relationship with Christianity. When my faith moves away from self-identiy and survival and acceptance, maybe I am on my way to maturity and I can relate to God as my friend and love others who are not like me rather than be threaten by them....

But these are just the beginnings of these thoughts and the topic is making me just want to go jump on the bed again. Maybe I will do it just to test Ben's grace towards me.  Perhaps my marriage needs to go through a process of maturing too.