Lately the signs that I am actually an adult seem to surprise me. It doesn’t faze me that I’ve been out of college for three years, that I am buying a house or that I’ve held down a real job for two years. Even the huge bills that come every month to the mailbox with my name printed on them aren’t really a sign that I’m an adult. My friends are all married or have babies. Some of them are divorced. And some of them are working on the PhD’s.
But those are not the signs of adulthood that disturb me.
The signs of adulthood that disturb me are along the lines of my therapist is the same age as me.
I think I always knew that someday I would be an adult. Someday, I would have a “real” job. Someday, people would give me money for my services and refer their friends and family to me.
I forgot about the part of it where people my age would grow with me though. I forgot that they too would have real jobs and be paid for their services. And I forgot about the part where I would be paying those people for their services.
It isn’t weird that I’m telling my therapist about my mommy issues and talking about my ability methodically and thoroughly reason away my inner child. It’s weird that I’m paying a therapist who is my age to talk about those things.
But from here on out, it is only going to get stranger. Because eventually, the cute little kids that I once babysat for are going to have graduate degrees and real jobs and I’m going to start paying them for their services. And eventually, I’ll have kids and my kids will grow up and I’ll pay people who are the same age as my offspring for their skills.
And I’ll look at them the same way a Baby Boomer looks at a Millennial and I’ll wonder, “When did I get so old?”
When did I get so old? said...
1[...] Go to the author’s original blog: When did I get so old? [...]
07/29/08 11:23 AM | Comment Link
Deb said...
2Hi Dorie. Your post reminded me of something similar that I blogged about back in January and thought you might appreciate it. The fact is, you’re absolutely right – it only gets stranger! I can’t even begin to tell you how much it freaks me out that we’re now hiring people in my company that were born in the late-80s. (By the way, we haven’t met yet, but all of our mutual friends at The Well have told me that we should!)
07/30/08 4:17 PM | Comment Link
Babies? Maybe Later » Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up said...
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Babies? Maybe Later : Brazen Careerist - A Career Center for Generation Y said...
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