Sometimes, I just really don't want to be an adult. It seems like being a grown-up is just one annoying thing after another: bills and insurance and bank accounts and stolen IDs and credit reports and I'm noticing a theme here that everything seems to involve money. I would like to ban money and all of the associated anxiety. The thing I would most like to get rid of is that sinking sensation when you know that something is about to cost you way more than you can afford, like a car accident or a medical procedure.
When I was 25 or so, I used to wonder how my parents managed to be grown up at 25, which is how old they were when I was born. I felt very far from being grown up at 25. I wondered how they managed to seem like they knew what they were doing, even when there was no way they possibly could have known, like at checkpoints in Liberia.
Now, though, I have it figured out: you fake it. You just do. I don't have kids, so I don't have to fake it quite as well, not yet, but I still fake it. I pretend that I'm calm about making that phone call. I pretend that I know what questions to ask when the bank calls to tell me that my debit card was used at an electronics store in New Jersey (New Jersey?!? I haven't been in New Jersey since 2006, and I didn't have this bank account then). You just keep doing the next thing that has to be done and somehow, hopefully, it all gets done.
I guess I thought there was more to being a grown-up. I thought someday I would feel like one, but now I'm not sure that day will ever arrive. Maybe being grown up is more about what you do than about what you feel.
When I was 25 or so, I used to wonder how my parents managed to be grown up at 25, which is how old they were when I was born. I felt very far from being grown up at 25. I wondered how they managed to seem like they knew what they were doing, even when there was no way they possibly could have known, like at checkpoints in Liberia.
Now, though, I have it figured out: you fake it. You just do. I don't have kids, so I don't have to fake it quite as well, not yet, but I still fake it. I pretend that I'm calm about making that phone call. I pretend that I know what questions to ask when the bank calls to tell me that my debit card was used at an electronics store in New Jersey (New Jersey?!? I haven't been in New Jersey since 2006, and I didn't have this bank account then). You just keep doing the next thing that has to be done and somehow, hopefully, it all gets done.
I guess I thought there was more to being a grown-up. I thought someday I would feel like one, but now I'm not sure that day will ever arrive. Maybe being grown up is more about what you do than about what you feel.
1 comment:
My dad was 27 when Nate was born. I've thought about that a number of times before, especially when I look at old pictures, and I'm now the same age as he was. It's strange.
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