My Phantom #Maturity @MaturityMuse @TowardsMaturity @MontessoriAMI #Mature #Immature #Premature #Maturation #Maturely #Maturescent

I am mature/immature in three ways:

First (most obviously) is my age—born in 1981, I'm about as "physically mature" as that length of time allows.

The second way I'm mature—I've been told that I was always 'old' (I don't remember the exact words my longtime-classmate used to describe it—'an elder,' 'wise,' 'wizardly' ...). 

I think there are two reasons for this:

1.  I learned to read when I was 3-or-4, and hence had the habit of 'spending time with the work of good, wise writers' works'; and
2. The basic summary of The Secret (I'm sure the book goes into deep detail and helps you learn to use 'The Secret' in your life ... or maybe I'm thinking of a different 'Secret') is basically 'you instinctively become more-and-more-like the people you spend time-with (so spend time with successful people, you'll probably find more success!)'
• (spending time with the work of so many wise writers, I became more-and-more 'wise' (as much as a child/teenager/young-adult can become))

Thirdly, my brain's connection to my body was 'reset' when I was 14 years old. 'Most of my memories from before that' are still there, and my body is mostly 'the 1981 vintage'; but part of "me" has only been alive since 1995.

That third 'maturity' hasn't seemed to matter so-much–I only missed a year of high-school, made-up-for by 1) the advanced/honors classes I had taken up to that point & 2) a few Summers in summer-school–but ... something about "marriage" ...

Some might look at that third 'maturity,' and think I'm trying to make up "an excuse for marrying someone 14 years my junior." And I suppose my "resurrection at 14" would be a good 'excuse' for that. But it's not about 'what I want.'

See; whatever people say about 'what they "want" in a marriage,' it seems that they end up marrying "people they grew-up with." (I can think of several notable exceptions, so I'm sure you can too; but by-&-large 'people they grew-up with' are the usual matches, and you can usually think of 'the exceptions' as "people who met & 'grew together' at a crucial time in their lives.")

And it looks like my future-wife & I will have to meet 'at a crucial time' (or we've met already and haven't fully realized it yet) ...

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The word “Mature” is built on “Ripeness” (Good, having Reached the Time for 'Harvest' (Payment)).

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So I'm just hanging here. But either there don't seem to be a lot of husband-seekers out there harvesting–none who are looking for 'an otherwise-inactive single guy' to be their husband–or I'm not quite 'ripe' for it yet.

... it may be 'snarky' of me to think this (like 'a disillusioned teenager who feels that the world is controlled by greed and "nobody cares about anybody 😢"'); but it seems that most girls are more-interested in 'sturdy beasts-of-burden' than in "fellow human-beings"

And Oh, I'm sure that women feel equally 'used' (their word for it is "objectified," as though they're not so much the man's 'partner' as his "arm-candy" or "tool"). And I'm pretty-sure that both parties agree to be objectified/used by the other—unfairly (i.e. with no 'payback' expected beyond "the opportunity to continue being used/objectified).

That's why I always looked forward to 'having a car'—so that I could show what a good 'beast of burden' I was ... on top of 'what a charming human I was' and 'how much fun life was when I was around,' yes; but only as long as 'I could bear the burdens she needed me to carry.'

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That brings me to 'why I tagged the education-profiles in the subject-line): on a panel of TBI-survivors speaking with a class at OU, I commented that 'I hadn't really noticed any classes on "how to be a husband" in high-school.' (I suppose they could also have "how to be a wife"-classes, or -could put both classes together & call it 'future marriage.')

Then 'the snark' strikes again, and makes me suppose that that's because 'marriage' isn't a smart, reasonable thing to do; that it's more 'a method of keeping the carnal beast at-bay' ... dressing-up "the relationship" with ribbons and lace and honorable ceremony and ritual, to make the harsh reality more palatable ...

I hope I'm wrong about that–and that marriage

 is really the 'partnership for life' most of its proponents

 paint it as–but I need more of "those kinds of

 marriages" to shine on me and light our way back to

 'a time when happy marriages were so common they

were almost "boring!"'

Let your good examples shine in the comments!