Goin' Deep

So, this isn't so knitting-ish. Mostly it's a musing, and so for those of my four readers (I'm like the Conan O'Brien of blogging, only it's not irony - oh well) who don't want to know about anything non-yarn-related, feel free to catch me again in a coupla days. I promise I'll talk knitting then.

I think I'm finally going to have to really grasp, really embrace the fact that I've grown up. That I am, in fact, A Grown-up.

It's weird. I'm 32 years old, I'm a mother, I've been married for seven years to a man I've been with for a total of 12 years now. My best friends are people I've known for two whoppin'-great decades. So you would think I'd come to terms with this by now. That somehow, in 32 years, I'd have figured out that I was actually an adult.

But I really haven't.

I remember several (several!) years ago I caught this thing on C-span, of all channels. Michael Medved, who I'd previously only known as a film critic, was talking about how the rampant consumerism of our culture was sustained by an artificial extension of adolescence. That adolescence, by virtue of a whole bunch of factors, is that time in a person's life when they have the most disposable income as well as a large amount of self-determination combined with low responsibility. Add in that most adolescents are struggling to figure out who they are and who they want to be, plus feel a strong need to express themselves and be recognized for who they are (this week), and you get an advertiser's wet dream. And so, in order to keep expanding their customer base, advertisers and corporations keep trying to widen the range of "adolescence". Which is why you now find nail polish marketed to grade-schoolers in teddy bear-shaped bottles at the same time that auto makers are marketing minivans to the tune of "Teenage Wasteland" and trying to convince the Baby Boomers that they aren't too old to have Sugar Smacks for breakfast every morning. (Okay, these are all old examples, but you get the point I hope, because I haven't paid much attention to ads the past few years now.)

Anyway, that concept has stuck with me ever since. That idea that childhood and adulthood have gotten really mixed up into this uncomfortable mishmash and left a lot of us really confused as to what the hell is expected of us, what the correct path is in our lives... it resonated somehow.

Not surprising, I suppose. My folks used to joke that I was "8 going on 40" when I was a kid. At the time it was a big joke and I secretly took a bit of pride in being "so mature". Now I look back and see there's nothing funny about a 9-year-old giving herself stomach ulcers.

Which is the shortest way I can think of to say that from very early on, there were a lot of situations where I felt like the adult in my family. And while in some ways (okay, a lot of ways) it sucked, it has given me the ability to avoid making a lot of mistakes in my life.

The thing, though, is that I wasn't mature in every arena. And my folks, not always being good at the whole "adulthood" thing themselves, weren't able to teach me much about the things I really was going to need once I was out on my own. Which is why I still find myself having to devise ways to "outsmart" myself if I want to stand any chance of making it from one paycheck to the next without writing a bad check (O Debit Card, how I love thee!). It's why my house is pretty much always a wreck. It's why I get all stupid about things sometimes.

But the past week or so, I've had a couple weird things happen that have made me go, "oh, uh... I guess I'm really not a kid anymore."

The first is I was dinking around the blogosphere, and I happened to notice that a lot of the cool-kid knit-bloggers out there are people who I'd thought were, well, a lot older than me... they aren't. There's maybe a handful who are five to eight years older than me, but most are actually just about my age, give or take a couple years. Which kind of gave me some pause while I realized that no, my peers are no longer primarily working Joe jobs until their "real career" takes off or until they figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Most of them are, if not what they wanted to be when they grew up, in jobs which they're pretty enthusiastic about.

The second thing was that a couple friends of mine are facing real serious marital troubles, to the point where there may well be two more of my friends facing divorce. Which, I have to admit, really has me thrown. Not just because these are people who I care a lot about and I simply ache for them in their pain, but also, in a petty, selfish way because I'm flabbergasted. I mean, divorce is something that happens to my parents' friends, not mine, right? My friends are all still dating and just getting married and being bright happy newlyweds, right? Right? .... Not so much.

It seems I've misplaced the past two years. Not surprising, I suppose, seeing as how the kids are approaching their second birthday in a couple months, and well... what the heck have I done in the past two years except be a parent and become a knitter? Really, nothing. And, at the same time, everything.

Except, of course, become A Grown-up.

I dunno. I mean, when did y'all "know" you were a grown-up? Do you feel like A Grown-up most of the time?

It's all so confusing and seems so impenetrable sometimes.

But it's gotta happen. I mean, somebody's got to be the Grown-up around here, and I'm not going to follow my folks' example and make the kids do it, so... time to grow up, Thorny. Now just to figure out how to DO that.....