Initiation in the life of Zack

The Initiation, the moment the individual comes maturity, and must except their responsibilities. These are words that should not be thrown around, but I feel as though they they are thrown at me far too often. Teachers and other mentors are always trying to tell us how we are becoming more mature and must have more responsibility. Going into the middle school was supposed to be when be becames "middle-schoolers" and would therefore would go through the initiation to become these bettered individuals. There was, though, no moment, no time where we could say, "Yes I am now a mature person". There was only a brief ceremony at the end of school for the teachers and parents to pat themselves on the back.
The Initiation occurs spontaneously in the everyday moments that quickly become extrodinary and will stay with us for our entire lives. It is when your are six and lose your parents in the store. It is when you flunk a test after not studying. It was when I sat on a rock with numb fingers and the everything infront of me inscutible through the falling snow and warmth was five miles away and I had to accept the pain as my world and know that fighting the pain would only turn it from annoying to dangerous. It was when four boys stood shivering in a lake with me with mix expressions of both awe and apprehension hoping that I could show them how to hold their sagging bodies in the water and swim. The Initiation is when the responsibility is thrust upon you nomatter how you fight it and the only way to master it is to master yourself.