Adulting is Overrated and Underwhelming
I like to step on crunchy leaves. And use my toe to crack the thin ice on the top of puddles. I have ordered the kid’s meal and let the counter clerk assume I’m feeding a child. I’m old enough to have a child. I’m old enough that my kid could have a kid and yet I still like to touch the sea creatures at the tide pond in the aquarium.
I work, I pay my bills, I pay my taxes, I pay for my groceries. I’m an adult. Ish. The thing is, I think that a lot of adults are like me, impostors passing as reasonable, responsible, ordinary grownups. Where I work, we have a meeting table that has coloring paper and crayons. For meetings. For those of us who pretend maturity, who are adultish. I have friends who have jigsaw puzzles at work. Or ping pong tables. Or video games and I think that’s because letting the child still living within some of us play is a way to refresh our creative spirits. With creativity comes energy and innovation and work becomes fun.
I’m still enchanted by the shimmer of droplets on a spider’s web. I watch water striders and wonder how far I could get if I ran really fast off of a dock. I love stories where the monotony of adulting is broken by something curious, something strange, something unusual happening. With a shiver of delight, I settle into the story excited for the opportunity to peel away the adultish layers that we don as we blearily slap our alarm clocks each morning. I want to write stories that can remind a reader of the pure magic that once existed around each new bend in the trail, of the delicious anticipation of opening a dusty old trunk, or the endless possibilities of who you could be next when pawing through a box of costumes.
Except for a few celebrities who are clearly aliens, aging happens. So it’s OK that the only time I ever get carded for the booze I order is from a server coyly angling for a bigger tip. I will pretend to act my age and capitulate to the inevitable progression of gray hairs and junk mail for those no longer young. You keep your cardigans and intolerance of listening to today’s hit music and political rants and chase kids off your yard and pound out your books with a frown on your face. I’ll keep investigating the shape of clouds and scheming how to build a secret room and wearing my fabulous writing shirt (featured above) and generally being adultish.
How are you adultish?