Ever since I arrived in France, some weird things have started happening to me. Some weird, slightly worrisome, growning-up kind of things. For one thing, I’ve started making my bed every morning, something I could never muster up the energy for in the past. What’s worse, I sweep my room and I keep my hair out of the shower drain (even though I’m the only one that uses it!). My books (all 7 of them) are always in perfect order and, as my mom would say, “there’s a place for everything and everything’s in its place.” But, by far the most appalling thing I’ve been doing — and I’m almost ashamed to write this — is that I’ve been WEARING SLIPPERS so that I don’t DRAG MUD INTO MY ROOM. Since when did I care about dragging mud into my room? All the adult-like habits that my parents nagged me about for my whole life (that I failed to see the point in and therefore never did), well, I’m doing them. What’s more, is that I’ve actually been sticking to my personal commitments and being productive.
Who am I?
All kidding aside, I’m actually pleasantly surprised by my new-found, apparent matureness. But I can’t seem to figure out why I’m doing it. One reason might be that I simply love my room. I’m situated in a quaint spare-bedroom-converted-studio separate from the house, with yellow and blue walls. It’s spacious and has it’s own bathroom, but my favorite feature is the Southeast facing window, which lets in lots of morning sunshine. When you have a space that makes you so happy, that’s all your own, you can’t help but want to keep it clean.
But there’s also something else that’s driving it, though I’m not sure I understand it completely yet. My whole life, cleanliness has been demanded of me and structure has been forced upon me. I wake, eat, go to school, do my work, and it all cycles. Now, with all the freedom in the world, I seem to be searching for some sense of that dreadful structure that ruled my life before. I guess I was given a choice. To flounder and fall apart, or to create my own.
I’m not getting ready in the morning because I have to go to school, I’m just getting ready for me, because apparently (again, this is news to me) I like to look nice. I’m not keeping my room clean because my parents told me to (though they gave up asking me years ago), but just because I like it clean.
Another thing I’m learning about is the power of developing a habit. I really never gave myself the time to develop good habits like making my bed, having a regular routine, or folding my laundry immediately. It always seemed hard, so I just didn’t do it. But man, if you can just start, find some sort of inspiration to fuel the first few times, it just gets easier and easier. At some point, you don’t even think about it anymore, you just do it.
I know, I know what your thinking. Duh Aleah, isn’t that obvious? Hadn’t everyone been telling me “develop good habits” and “just make it a habit” my whole life? The thing is, I knew about habits, or at least I thought I did. I knew about them conceptually, but I didn’t believe them yet. I just had to see it in action, affecting my own life, before I could accept it into my heart. I think growing up is about testing out all the advice that you got growing up, even if it’s only to find out that they were all right.
I know my mom is going to cry when she reads this, because there is no stronger evidence of good parenting then when you send your child out into the world, and they figure out how to take care of themselves. They figure out how to “adult”. Thanks Mom, you did good.