Grown Ups

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an average day, cleaning house, making meals, chauffeuring people to and fro, taking a moment to belt out a Lisa Lisa Cult Jam song in your best shower voice, when it hits you: I'm the grown up. If something goes wrong or heck, if something goes right it's on me.  You look around the car sheepishly making sure none of the people whose lives depend on  your 'grown up ness' realize you have these thoughts.  They would pounce on you like a hungry lioness feeding her cubs.  You snap back into yourself and think, I pay a mortgage, I have a checkbook, I own sensible shoes for crying out loud. Of course I am a grown up.  

I keep waiting for that Ahhh Ha Moment where I feel like I got this. Like whatever life throws my way I can handle.   How I assumed all grown ups felt.  I suspect this is a fallacy. I think we all feel 17 in our heads and just act like a 36 year old's should act.  I don't think I feel immature.  In fact I think at 17 I was quite mature. I got into way less trouble than most kids my age.  I had good friends who  also made good choices and we chose stupid fun over trouble.  I give you Moto Photo Car Jacking Night as a prime example. If you were there you know of what I speak. No trouble, just making fun out of a somewhat peculiar situation.

Back to today. I still dance around my kitchen to music that made me smile as a kid.  I am very nostalgic for my High School days. Not that I was popular, the home coming queen or class president.  I was the chubby girl in the choir robe who liked NKOTB.  But I was always me.  I never faked it.  Me and my friends didn't care what was expected of us.  We literally marched to the beat of our own drummer and he beat out some good One Hit Wonders: I am from the Vanilla Ice, Wreckx-N-Effect, Deep Blue Something Era.  We had the feel good music of our generation at it's best.  No heavy lyrics, a whole lot of yeah yeah yeahs.  Or in my case Ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo's... good times.  

I have never wanted to go back.  I am enjoying being a grown up and have zero regrets.  I do however find it important to keep your old  friends close. I am blessed to still be very close with a number of my friends from 6th/7th grade. I think it is vital that you spend time with people who know you, at your core.  Who have slept over your house and rollerskated with you.  People who permed your hair, put copious amount of blue eye shadow on you and sent you into the world saying "yeah girl, you look good". Folks who rode around in your car with the windows down, music pumping and understood your biggest care was your math midterm.  People who were there when you were becoming you.

I am coming to understand that growing up is about choices, not feelings.  You choose to do the responsible thing.  You choose your kids college fund over Jimmy Choo's. You make grilled tilapia with roasted veggies on a real plate instead of eating nachos off the sheet tray.  You get sleep.  You clean things because the alternative is grossness.  No one is coming to pick up your mess after you. You do the right things.  The unselfish things.  The things that prosper the people you love first, second, third, fourth, sometimes fifth.  You put yourself on the back burner and find peace in that.  In fact, you find immense joy in that.

Disclaimer: a few times a year I make sure that I get away with my girlfriends.  These same lunatics who sent  me into the world with day glow pink lip gloss and  two pairs of Wigwams.  These women are who I am.  They were there when this mess was forming into a woman.  They lifted me up and made me feel safe to become me.   They do the same thing for me to this day.  I need that  time with them to regroup.  To decompress in the safety of a Judge Free Zone.  Running a household, a business, a marriage and 4 small lives   is the best thing I have ever done but it is work folks.  No bon bon's or housekeepers here.  Getting to let go for a day or two and just be me is selfish.  It is childish.  Irresponsible. But most of all it is necessary. For me to be on my A-Game I have to be me.  Thank you God for the women in my life who help me to do that. Thank God for a husband who allows me that selfish time now and again. Thank God for parents who help out with the kids so I can take a minute for just me.  Thank God for new friends who may not have known me at 13, but were me at 13 and we have such common ground now.

In short....Thank you God for the people you have put in my life. I could not ask for more.