Growing Pains

Length of Shower: 9 min--No, I'm not talking about that Growing Pains, the tv show, I'm talking about the real growing pains.

When I was a young lad about the age of 12 I had a few issues.  Aside from the normal puberty issues of a changing voice and bad smells coming from places I didn't know existed, I also had very frequent pain in my knees and legs.  The pain was a constant aching that felt like a vice grip slowly being tightened on my bones.  I complained about this pain whenever it occurred.  I always started with my mother, who without even a look or hesitation in her voice would say it was growing pains and that they will go away "soon enough", however long THAT is I never knew.  Next I would go to my father for sympathy and he would simply direct me back to my mother.  So, in the end I just had to suck it up and deal with this minor annoyance of pain that was apparently evidence that my bones were in-fact growing.  So, I went about my days and started to assume that I was going to be a very tall man.

Later in life, however, I heard the term again.  This time it was in reference to the emotional pain I had when I thought of home while living in a dorm full of other college males who were all exhibiting different forms of dominance on any given night.  My mother again gave me the wisdom that this feeling was also a "growing pain."  Although it felt very different than the growing pain years earlier, I took her word as truth and indeed got used to the violence and noise of other young men full of testosterone.

I thought that would be it for me, and that the "growing pains" would stop when I was a full grown adult, but again I was wrong.  After going through a break up with a longtime girl friend and moving across the country and having no money to my name; my mother again came with her wise words telling me to stay patient through the "growing pains" of life.  And again I pulled myself through it and everything was fine.

Recently, a female friend of mine was going through a frustrating time and this time it was me who had the wise words.  "This too will pass" I said, "it's just growing pains."  That made her feel a lot better.

And with that I realized what growing pains really are; a pair of words to let you know that this is just one of those moments in life where the roller coaster is at a valley, but it will assuredly come back up to a peak.  And the fact is, that life's peaks always do come back, if you just wait out those growing pains.