The Meaning of Growing Up

What does growing up mean?

When you're young, you have a lot of expectations from life. You're happy when you finally come of age. Only to realize that everything is different than we thought. When we can finally decide for ourselves what we want to do and what we want to be. Then we realize that this is not that easy. Because now it is other adults who are telling us how we should function. Your boss, co-workers, sometimes even friends. They tell us how we should behave in order to be successful, recognized and respected. Our ideas about growing up collapse like a house of cards. The reality of growing up can often be sobering and present us with challenges we did not expect..

Our ideas about adulthood are collapsing like a house of cards. Hopes are dashed and then what is left?

I wasn't even 18 years old when I got to this point.

A life they never wanted because it is a life of total dependence that few have escaped! Guys, I saw that! We hid 2 heroin addicts from the police in our attic room in the hotel. And we fed them through. One of them almost died after taking a shot of heroin. I sat next to it. We had to deal with fear. Luckily he survived the shot. After our eventful tour through Switzerland into our spring. Then came the bitterest loss for me. Hupfi was interrogated and arrested shortly afterwards. She broke into the hotel office and enriched herself with “holiday money”. It probably wasn't entirely professional. In any case, that was it for her apprenticeship at the Hotel Alpenblick. We experienced so much on our crazy tour through Switzerland that it would go beyond the scope of this article. But it would be exciting! Maybe later you can read in my book.

Now back to the view of the Alps. Since Hupfi and I had spent almost all of our free time together and lived and worked in the same hotel, this was a painful loss for me. My best friend was gone, just gone. I was left alone and the world around me was bleak, cold and hopeless. What else should I hope for, a happy family? I didn't know any happy families in my area. I felt alone, taken advantage of and sometimes even despised. I was pulled into the depths as if by a dark undertow. I was drowning in what I thought was a hopeless sea of ​​disappointments. My thoughts began to turn to self-murder. We had very sharp knives in the kitchen. One step would be enough or then drive to Zurich and escape this darkness forever with a golden shot

I have Dani to thank for the fact that this never happened. I knew Dani from the scene in Glarus. He himself had been through a lot. For example, a horror trip from which he didn't recover for a long time, needed psychological help and resulted in stays in the clinic. But he was the only one who recognized my need. He invited me over. I used to sleep in his attic at home from time to time. And there in the attic, I told him everything that was bothering me. I vomited out all my frustration, disappointment and hopelessness. It was he who threw me the rescue rope before the suction pulled me into the depths. God had repeatedly sent me angels to save me from the abyss, otherwise I would no longer exist for a long time! My conclusion back then; That can't be it, life. I said to myself; stop thinking, but go, live and enjoy, without looking for answers for the meaning

As an apprentice chef in a trendy hotel with a restaurant, I work hard. For a pittance. The hotel was at the mountain station and all skiers and tourists walked past it or came in. Because the view of the mountains was phenomenal, especially in winter. The staff lives in the attic. But behind the facade things looked bleak. The kitchen (more like a cellar hole) with cut wooden tables showed a lot of handwork. When I started at the age of 15, I had to cut mountains of vegetables and onions by hand. It was then said that it was good but it had to be done faster. Don't ask me how many times I cut or burned my fingers. Just surviving as a girl in an all-male team from a wide variety of nations and also facing a mafioso was a stark challenge. And I had to go through it alone. My parents had just divorced and I was more concerned with myself than with my situation. The chef was an alcoholic, or rather drunk until the evening. The patrons have publicly known affairs. After a year, Rachel can join the bar and restaurant as a trainee. She was from the city and we became best friends overnight. She took me to the youth center in Glarus. And we met with like-minded people. With young people who were just as frustrated as we were with the world they were trying to force us into. We were ready to break out of the norms imposed on us. We wanted to live and let live! Freedom to be who and what we always dreamed of. We were able to do that in the youth center and in our click.

And we experienced so many beautiful things together. Nature, music and mutual acceptance allowed us to temporarily experience this peace. Experiences around the campfire at Lake Klöntalersee with guitar etc. will always remain in my memories. My friends smoked joints but we rarely had alcohol with us. Back then I let the joints pass me by, it didn't bother anyone. The harsh everyday life caught up with us all too quickly. We had no choice but to “survive” and adapt and fit in. Many found it difficult to find their way in this dark world. Failed and fell. And not everyone manages to get up and move on. Because no one told them that it was okay to make mistakes, fail, etc. The only important thing was to get up and keep going. And if you need help with that, get it.

My friendship with Rachel (Hupfi) was my anchor back then, but then... Then so many things happened that changed. New drugs were being tried out in the scene in Glarus. Especially when there was hardly any marijuana or hash in Zurich, they bought something else for the weekend. The autonomous house on Zurich's Blattspitz was the stronghold of the drug trade. Yes, and there was pretty much everything there. I also bought my first hash there. Because at some point I had to try it. What I wanted to say is that many good friends came into contact with dangerous drugs through buying marijuana and slipped away. Those who tried these substances ended up in the endless spiral of addiction, ie. of procuring, injecting, raising money, buying new material. A death spiral that comes with crime, confrontation with law enforcement and physical deterioration.

And I have experienced a lot of crazy, exciting and devastating things in my life. Maybe I was regaining a piece of the carefree attitude of my childhood. That was stolen from me by the adult world. It is a long way to find the simplicity and purity of your own being (the child in us) again. What does growing up mean? Leave your childhood behind or discard your childlike soul in order to then become something? Adult? Better? Smarter? Successful? Yes, for all this we give up our childlike, pure, real and vulnerable soul.