When I read the call for submissions about growing up and growing old, my first thought was, “Grown up? I sure as hell haven’t grown up yet.” Then the baby kicked.
It still seems absurd. Thirty-three, pregnant, steady job, steady marriage, car, house, dog, cat, grad school. I have responsibilities. Colleagues turn to me instead of Human Resources when they have questions about benefits. I got my driver’s license. My wife and I help strangers get married. I can my own jam. We belong to a CSA. I’m seriously considering setting up a side business as a consultant. If I had to describe myself, I would probably throw the word “competent” in there somewhere.
But I’m still not sure I’m an adult. I don’t just mean in the staying up until three a.m. on Twitter, living off of rotisserie chicken and bread, binging on ice cream, half finished home improvement projects, can’t return personal email, lord knows when we last cleaned the house kind of way.
Becoming a grown-up feels a bit like Allie Brosh’s adult responsibility trophy. It’s a mantle you have to earn. I don’t feel grown-up, but I keep getting older. I keep expecting someone to award it to me, but it hasn’t materialized yet. I didn’t get it when I graduated college, struck out on my own, came out to my parents, moved in with my then girlfriend, married said girlfriend, bought property with her, renovated a kitchen ourselves without getting divorced, went through seven emotional months of fertility treatments and then finally, dealt with impending baby and all of the physical, mental, financial, and emotional tolls that brings. If I go through all of that and I’m still not a grown-up, when does it happen? When do I get my emotional wisdom, that I can sit in my rocking chair on my front porch and give my granddaughter wise advice she’ll treasure forever?
When we found out that our seventh and potentially final attempt at conception was successful, in between the morning sickness and insomnia, I complained to my wife that I thought I would feel different. I just felt like me, but with unending nausea. Months later, with maternity leave approved and baby tap-dancing in my stomach… it feels the same. I don’t feel different. I don’t have a magical connection to a baby inside me, I feel like me, but now it’s me with constant back pain and a stomach that moves creepily every few hours. I think, “Maybe it’ll feel different once I actually get to meet her,” maybe then in donning the mantle of mommy-dom, I’ll finally become a grown-up, but I’m skeptical. I’ll probably still be me, just with a tiny pooping tyrant attached to my tits for the next six months.
I don’t just want to grow up, I don’t just want to grow old, I want to grow gracefully. Accepting things with grace has never been my strong suit. Hell, I started a blog to complain about how much I hated the first five months of pregnancy. I can move and adjust to a lot, as long as I can complain to someone about it the entire time.
But growing gracefully is about more than just dying gray hairs (which I’ve been doing since age twenty-two) or feeling like you’re a good dancer. I think it’s about taking stock. Sixteen felt the same as twenty-two, as twenty-five, as twenty-eight, and as thirty-three, but damn, if you put sixteen-year-old me and thirty-three-year-old me next to each other, they would probably not recognize the other. And that’s okay. I would rather accept who I am and be happy with her than refuse to grow. I’ll keep evolving. Twenty years from now, I’ll probably laugh at how naive I am right now.
Maybe by then, I’ll feel like I’ve finally grown up.
