{image from we heart it – and unfortunately, is not actually me}
It’s been dawning on me lately {to steal from dearest Dorothy} that we ain’t in Kansas anymore… And why, I hear you ask..? Excellent, well observed question, says I. Well it is because I think, it only just occurred to me that this is real life and I’m a grown up. Or growing up. Or older at very least. I don’t know what I thought I was doing but it kinda took me by surprise.
You see I already though of myself as a grown up. I have a home with a mortgage. I have a hubby with the requisite urges for children. I have a job, a career and a business. I pay taxes, I have a super fund (401K or something to the Americans out there) and I vote. We are even talking pets. Fencing the yard than pets. All, I am sure you agree, are very grown up pursuits.
But it wasn’t until I started watching people that are my age on to their third and forth child/husband/country that I thought. Maybe I hadn’t taken this seriously. This grown up thing. Maybe I wasn’t quite there yet. And then I was told about a couple I know. We used to be really close friends. They used to be so in love. They were married just after us. Together for over 7 years. And she, it turns out, has left and is not coming home. It’s over. And I realised…
That’s something people my parents age do. And it occurred to me that I have a mere 6 months remaining until I am the very age that my mother was when she gave birth to me. And that we are my parents age. Or that I am now, that age that I have always thought of my parents as being. Strange. How did that happen? Where did those years go from when I was a kid playing in the sand looking at my parents and thinking how unfailing and unstoppable they seemed. To now. Whoooosh. Flying past and gone.
And then I thought. Oh my goodness. My mother was my age when she had me. She must have been freaking out in a similar way to what I am about the chance of me being a mother. She would have had no idea what to expect. Or what to do. Or how to do it. Knowing my mother she would have chewed her nails and demand Dad tell her what the plan was. And than, she would have done it her own way anyhow. And Dad, well he would have loved her for that.
And then, I got really calm. If they can do it. So darn successfully. Then the worst case scenario, if I am completely stuffing it all up, my life and my unborn (actually un-conceived) children, my relationship and my everything is… I’ll just figure it out. Whatever will be, will be. {Oh gosh, I feel a song coming on} There’s a freedom in that, don’t you think? Come to think of it. I think I may have just cured myself of my I-need-to-know-how-it’s-going-to-turn-out-way-before-I-even-try-ness. Phew. that’s a relief. I’ve been carrying that one around for decades.
Breakthrough moment! Hurrah.
{how the bloody hell do you spell hoo-rah!?}
{how the bloody hell do you spell hoo-rah!?}
So tell me, if you please, the exact moment you realised that you were a grown up.
No looking back, the only way from here is forward, grown up.
And what you saw for yourself in that flashing moment of brilliance.
I, for one, would love to know.
Really, truly, I would.
And yes, it really is 1.45am. Breakthrough moments can happen anytime, excuse me.
Nighty night.
Suger 
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