I am often mistaken for an adult due to my age. Obviously, this is an error. I am a mere child of 680 months old.
I am an adult to my own adult children — an “adultier adult” if you may. However, I still think I need to call my mom sometimes just to run something by her.
I am equally convinced my father-in-law knows more than I could ever hope to learn. I defer to Mr. Wonderful’s wisdom even. He’s just about a year older than I am. He knows interesting things.
Skills
So far at my age, I can replace the ribbon in a typewriter. I can change the needle on a record player. I can rewind a spooled cassette tape back into the tape with a pencil, too. I can write and read cursive. I can write a check and balance my checkbook. I can address an envelope.
I can count back change without a cash register. I can diagram a sentence. I can read a map. I can write a double-spaced research essay based solely on the full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica circa 1950.
If necessary, I can get my mom to come pick me up by making a collect call on a rotary pay phone, without having to pay for the call. This is assuming I can find a pay phone.
Most importantly, perhaps, is that I can recite the entire “Tinker and Tom and the Star Baby” book from memory. Every single page. Bonus: I can read upside down and backwards, so the book faces the children. Hold your applause.
I cannot sew, although it’s not for lack of trying. Bless my great-grandmother’s heart. I have sewn exactly one garment in my life. It did not go well.
Thank God I’m a good cook, or I would never have passed Home Ec class. I’d still be stuck there in 11th grade, trying in vain to finish a skirt. Although not sewing, I can “mend” things. By this, I mean I know how to repair the snag in a pair of nylons with clear nail polish.
I cannot draw worth a lick. I try, but somehow I cannot translate perspective to pen. I have one thing I can draw well: a cartoon pig. Just the head, though. Our children remember it fondly, I’m told, mom’s little pig cartoon. If I end up with a cartoon pig on a memorial someday, despite never having owned a pig in my life, this will be why.
I find that this is the age when I am learning more about myself. I know that I have very expensive tastes, but shop at antique and thrift stores because sometimes I have to remind myself that I am not, in fact, Beyoncé.
Being an adult is just so expensive these days. I can swear off spending, and then something needs repaired, renewed or registered. Spending money without even realizing it is like my superpower.
Now that GirlWonder is a homeowner, she shares my wonder at how expensive being an adult is — and the sheer joy in puttering around the house. We love to be home. Her home, our home. We don’t care. We just LOVE not going places.
It’s expensive to leave home, honestly. Also, I love people, but on the other hand, I need time to recharge. After a busy week, the world is just too peopley out there.
As a child, I was a bookworm, so it’s no surprise that staying in and cocooning is my natural habitat. It’s also safer, for the most part.
Granted, the past 8 weeks of hardcore DIY and renovation at her new old house have been building my muscles and maiming me. I’ve limped. Literally. As I age, I now have humiliating micro-injuries. “How did I hurt myself?” “Oh, just a lasting muscle cramp from holding a paintbrush. I also jumped off a 3-foot ladder and thought I might die.
I’ve often been told to “Act my age.” This is not possible since I’ve never been this old before.
As I’ve aged, I’m trying to total up the things I can do versus the things I still need to learn. I just don’t feel quite grown yet, ya know? I still refer to myself as “middle-aged,” although at this point, I would have to live to be 114 years old for this to be even remotely true.
People say, “Act like an adult!” Have you seen how some adults behave? That is terrible advice.
Adults who speak loudly on their mobile phones in public should make us question this missive. I prefer to act like I sort of know things and somewhat have it together.
At the same time, I remain open to new experiences and knowing that we are never too old to learn.
