Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004 - 12:22 a.m.
Becoming More Like An Adult
At home I opened a diary from when I was 20 or so and I read an entry about a weekend I remember well. The page started, 'This is why I know I'm not yet an adult: people upset me too much when they disappoint me with their actions."Hurrah, people don't upset me like that anymore, I must be [on my way to becoming] an adult! This is, in fact great news. I know people will always have the propensity to disappoint but I think that
1) accepting that this will happen
2) having done it myself before
3) not letting it become the most awful thing that can happen
all help in feeling more grown up. Because the fallibility of the world and creatures on it is something we have to accept. Well, we don't have to accept it but I don't want to live my life uptight and disappointed forever, so acceptance is the only option.
[Can you tell it's late at night hence blurble style?]
Anyway, I got to thinking about what other ways I have judged ascendence into adulthood. At 18 I wrote a list of things that will happen when I'm truly an adult and I'm mostly there with them. Here they are:
* Drinking coffee (check - this year)
* Eating olives (check - age 20)
* Socks not sliding off my feet when i'm not wearing shoes (check - mostly, at least, since age 9 or so)
* Being able to carry off Chanel perfume (check, ish, although I'll always feel like my mum in it. Still like it though.)
It might be time to revise the list, cos I'm sure I'm not properly fully an adult yet. But I can't think of anything that doesn't include babies and marriage (two things that are very far off still). What things to say?
In all, I feel adult enough to face 2005 and turning 28. I'm still, after all, in my 20s. In fact, I just decided that I'm going to write a speech for New Year's Eve, some kind of retrofuturospective. And I might just feel adult enough to share it. Let's see how the next 48 hours pan out.
Night.