By Digger - Her blog is Digging Deeper. You can read about her here. You can see all posts by Digger here.
Occasionally, I will catch myself doing or saying something very
grown-up (“Don't make me tell you again.”, “Not so loud, I'm on the
phone.”) and I’ll wonder how it is that I look and act exactly like a 26 year old woman when I still feel like a very un grown-up kid a lot of
the time.
I am an adult and have been for quite some time. The birthdate on my
driver’s license says so. The fact that the checkout girl at the grocery
store asks for my ID not because she believes I’m under 18 but to
verify that I haven’t stolen someone else’s credit card in order to
purchase my motherly sized grocery cart full of food. The way my bones
snap, crackle and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies when I get up off the
couch and the way that I can throw my back out with an out-of-nowhere
sneeze evidences that I’m not in my teens anymore.
I spend my days meal planning and grocery shopping. I vacuum, clean the
toilets and do an obscene amount of laundry. I run errands, and plan a
route that will be the least expensive for gas. I make and enforce the
household rules. I help Bruiser with school time and manage to answer
all of his questions like I actually know what I’m talking about. I am a
wife, mother and homemaker. I’m even relatively successful at it.
I got a vacuum one year for my birthday and I was happy about it. Why?
Because, when asked what I wanted for a gift, it was the only thing I
could think of that I really, really wanted. Because getting down on my
hands and knees to pick up junk off the floor sure does a number on the
old joints.
Sometimes, I just want silence. My idea of finding something fun to
spend extra cash on is buying a cute outfit for the kids at Little
Pampered People. Or purchasing that super cute candle holder that I’ve
been looking all over the place for. I wear flats because they’re
practical. I put a beenie on when it’s cold because you lose most of
your body heat through the top of your head and vanity has no place in
the middle of winter.
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I still feel like a
kid. I do a double-take every time someone calls me “ma’am.” I sometimes
find it odd that my kids look up to me as though I’m a grown up,
especially when they assume that I have the answers to everything.
Clearly I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. For some reason,
though, they don’t see that. Bless their little hearts, my kids really
do believe that I’m a mature, responsible parental figure. What they
don’t know is that I am a fraud. Here is how I know:
When I was growing up, my parents were grown-ups. They did have the
answers to everything. They did have everything figured out because even
though they claimed to have been children once upon a time, they
weren’t really. Or if they had been, it had passed really quickly. They
did all sorts of parent-y things like run errands, do obscene amounts of
laundry and cleaning, and make and enforce household rules. Obviously,
they had this whole adult thing in the bag. Because, naturally, you must
pass some sort of wiseness and general maturity test in order to become
parents. Right?
It didn’t even dawn on me until I became hopelessly entrenched in this
whole parenting thing myself that maybe my mom once felt the same way I
do now. Like she was really just a kid masquerading as an adult who had
everything figured out. That thought made me feel a little bit better
about myself because if my mom ever felt like she was flying by the seat
of her pants sometimes, it’s okay that I do, too. She’s making her way
through parenthood and adulthood in general like she actually knows what
she’s doing and, if I’m completely honest, I think I’m doing a pretty
good job of it myself. It doesn’t really matter that I feel like an
imposter sometimes as long as the rest of the world doesn’t manage to
figure it out.
Maybe being stunted is a good thing after all. I don’t have to have
everything figured out all the time to be successful in my life. I mean,
I’ve come across lots of people who think they know it all and really,
those people are kind of just jerks. Huh....
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