Life Sometime Can be a Game with different levels

Did you know that there are about 15 definitions on dictionary.com for the word mature? As I read the list of definition I quietly laugh at it. In my mind none of those definitions fit mines. In my own opinion, maturity is when someone decides to stop acting like a child, and truly discovers that the world is no fairytale. I started to form question to myself. How does one really evaluated their level of maturity? Can someone really tell if they are mature or not. Becoming mature takes time and effort, no one can wake up one morning and say “I’m grown.” There is different level of maturity. These levels can be compared to the seasonal changes. Spring can represent an early stage of life. To me spring is your childhood, which is an ignorant stage of life. Summer symbolizes the first step of growing up, when you put some of the childish thing behind oneself. Fall is when someone reaches complete adulthood and stop doing all the stuff they used to do when they were a child. When one is at their winter stage of life there are almost completed, soon their life will end. In “Marigolds” Eugenia Collier's created a fabled of a young girl journey on how she left the spring of her life and enter her summers. In hopes of understanding my own level of maturity, I went back to a time in my life were my childhood was rip away from me, kind of like how fast the season changes. In this essay, I’ll examine the step it took me to mature to the middle of my summer.

My parent was the cause of my leaving spring at a very early age. The constant fighting drove me to grow up at a very young age. I remembered that day as if it was imprinted into my subconscious being. I was about 4 ½, and at that time my mind was sheltered from the outside world. One day my world collapsed. I witnessed my dad walking out the front door, but this time it was different. This time my dad had more than his coat on to leave he had a duffel bag and a couple of boxes. He came over to me and kissed my forehead and said “Sweetheart, I’ll be back, daddy just leaving for a little while.” I didn’t see my father again for 2 years. This particular time in my life reminded me of the story “Marigold”, when Lizabeth (the main character of the story) saw her father crying. When Lizabeth discovered her father crying She began to think that “her mother who was small and soft was now the strength of the family; her father who now the strength of the father sobbing like the tinest child.” For me in my mind, instead of having a crying father, my father was abandoning my family and me. In my small but virgin and fragile mind, was now becoming foul and tinted. Back then, I always asked myself what will happen next. How would our family function now, now that our foundation was crack? There was something I knew for sure was that I would never be the same I was no longer ignorant to life anymore. I was a full participated. I was now playing the game life and I was getting my ass kicked.

Life without daddy was difficult but doable. It was easier to forget and act like it never happened then to actually deal. My schoolwork was affecting by this concept. Every little thought that pounces into my mind reminded me of him. The method to my pain was not thinking. I would sit in class all day with a blanked mind. Not thinking took away the pain. When I hit 2nd grade my father came back into my life. I didn’t know how to feel towards him. At the time I felt that he was a traitor but he was still my father and I loved him but there was still this sadness. With my father back in the pictured my mother was furious. She started to turn to the bible and God for her answers to life. Then she started to enforce the way of the Lord on me and my sibling. We didn’t like it one bit. There were fights between my father and mother constantly. Soon the Court system and government was introduced into my life. My parent couldn’t agree on custody arrangement and child support. It was like having God and Satan in the same room. Suddenly, a new emotion that I have never felt before was introduced into my life. Hatred. It was like dim candle burning, not to bright but still there. I began to hate my parents. I couldn’t understand why they both couldn’t agree. My mother who was the strength was now weak and my father, in my opinion was also weak because he couldn’t solve the problem with my mom. My life was in chaos. I turned to my brother who wasn’t much because he was either in troubled with the law all the time or with school. He had no time for me. This made me even more upset. My sister who was as confused as me turned to me. The only thing I had left in my heart was depressed so she got the short in of the stick. I was so mean to my sister back then in life. I felt that since I was being force to grow up that she should too. Often when I was trying to find out what was going on between my parent, I would spy on my mother and I would take my sister along with me. We both heard horrible words my mother and father through at each other. At the age of ten I left late spring and enter early summer.

I didn’t like growing up fast and being aware of life so handled thing best way as possible. I stop forcing my sister to grow up and began to sheltered her. I realized one day that, it wasn’t right to let her hear what my mother and father was saying. It was affecting her in ways I could understand. Soon my sister grades was faltering. I realized that I should have never forced her to grow up. As I began to cover her mind I realized that it was impossible to do so because the first time I open her mind to the fighting was when she too began playing the game life and there was no way to change it, I rip her innocent away the same way it was done to me. Lizbeth and I have yet another thing in common. In the story Marigold Lizbeth was furious at the fact that, she no longer could look at the world the same ways. In response, she pulled her brother Joe along as she decapitates Miss Lottie Marigold’s flowers. She also took her sibling through the change of life.

To establish a sense of closure, my life is nowhere nearing its end. I’m still growing and maturing. If I have to determine the level of maturity, I am at right now I would have to say I’m in the middle of summer of my life. I’ve changed a lot over the year. No longer do I feel hatred towards my parent, I love both of them. I see my father every other weekend and we have good time. I’m closer to my father then mother. My mother and me have different views on life and disagree constantly but I still love her. Also, I understand my parent a lot better now than I did before. They both thought they were doing what was best for the family. Both of them got it wrong but it was the thought that count. As for me, I learned ways to please both of my parents to keep down the fighting. This way my sibling and I don’t have to stress a lot. As for my sister she yet to fully recover from the divorce and I try do as much I can for her. I do a lot for my household so, that there will be less fighting. Now of day, I try to learned ways to keep my family happy. My mother recently said to me “you can evaluate your level of maturity by how much you give back and think about others.” If I never agree with my mother again, I will agree with her on that. As soon as you stop worrying about yourself and have others to look out for. You to have matured. To the readers, becoming mature can be difficult or easy, depending on the life you have. Some people go through life and maturity come naturally and other are forced to learn to grow up quickly. If you could decided how fast you would grow up would you take the fast or the slow way. For me, I would take the slow, there nothing worst then being rushed.