Maturity

So I do not know why I have no blogged on maturity yet, seems so natural since I think about it on a daily basis.
Not on my level of maturity, but on how it has made my views change throughout my life. Some more prominent things that come to mind are Food and clothing choices. I remember those days where I thought stuffing was “gross”. Then one day, I realize, man I really like that! Or the day where I realized that bran flakes, even though they are not covered in sugar and don’t have higher marshmallow to cereal ratio, are delicious!
Now lets look at the next change that maturity brings with it: clothing choices. This whole blog idea started from what I saw on the subway: Catholic High school girls who rolled their kilts so high their bums are pretty much showing. I remembered also in the winter when I saw high school kids in the winter time wearing no coat, no gloves, no hat, and you saw them shivering. Why? Cause it is not cool to wear these things? It is not cool to be warm? While I am in 7 layers, 2 pairs of gloves and a hat, I look at them and I remember those days. The days where you would not wear any of those things, for 2 reasons: you parents told you to, and it was just not “cool”. Thank goodness we all get over that. We finally realize that wearing gloves does not mean you are not cool, it means you are not COLD ;). It means you are dressing for the weather, preventing illness, and just being warm. Silly teenagers, this whole being “cool” thing. It just seems so trivial now.
Let’s reflect back on my Catholic High school kilt experience. It was just not cool to NOT roll your kilt. I am pretty sure I rolled my kilt to a length that was sometimes too high. And at the time, circa the year 2000, hot damn that was what you did! Now. I look at these girls and realize that this looks sloppy! AND the way they are allowed to wear cropped leggings, and runners with their uniform just made it look worse!
I have come to realize that the uniform was not a way to conform us into mind numbing students that are “sheep” and do not have their own views. Uniforms were there to make us look damn good. Having something to wear everyday that consisted of Polo shirts, kilts (at a reasonable length), ruby shirts, dress pants and dress shoes really is just classy. But instead of embracing this look, teens destroy it by rolling their kilts, wearing skater shoes with hot pink shoe laces.
Now don’t get me wrong. I did the same thing when I was in high school. Mostly because it was considered “un cool”; an unrealistic standard dictated by someone who probably graduated 7 years before me. No one at the school refuted these “unwritten rules of the uniform” so everyone continued to do this. Why did no one try and stop this trend? It is because if you fought it, you run the risk of being ridiculed and humiliated. Teens keep this up in order to be accepted in the school.
In that lies the biggest change that maturity installs in everyone: being comfortable with who you are.
When I looked at those girls on the subway, I just thought of “I wonder how far away from home they had to be before they rolled their kilt”. Really, looking back, I would have loved just to not care what other people thought of what I wore to school. I have become more comfortable with who I am, as a person. When we were all in high school, you still are dying to find a way to be accepted and will do what you can in order to try and be accepted. Whether it is change of your clothes or personality, everything done in the teen years is driven by the want to be accepted.
Thank god those days are over. Not completely, but it is a lot better. I wear what I want to wear; I hang out with who I want to hang out with and I not worried about their age, or whether they are “cool”. Everyone hits an age where they go “huh, I really like the way I dress this way, and I am going to rock it”. In essence, the word “cool” should only be used to describe the temperature inside a freezer. Using it to describe people is just silly, since being cool is different for everyone’s perspective.
So really what I have learned about maturity, that I wish I could have told those girls on the subway is: don’t sweat the small stuff, be confident with who you are and roll down your kilt!”