Fake it Till You Make It

Hey all,

Tonight I wanted to write about being An Adult because it's something I'm grappling with a lot these days. What does it mean to be an adult? How do I feel more grown-up? Will I ever really feel grown-up? How do I become a mature, responsible, and employed adult while not losing the things I value from my childhood and adolescence? I don't have the answer to any of these questions and I'm pretty sure it will be a long time before I formulate answers, but I can tell you what I've been thinking.

Let's start with my list of qualifications for adulthood in no particular order... (This is all what I think being an adult means)

1. Living away from your parents (this one is super culturally bound, but for me it would not be possible to be an adult in the way I want if I still lived with parents)

2. Working towards or furthering a career -  not a job

3. Being (somewhat) financially secure (I don't mean you own a home and have a 401K - though kudos if you do - I mean not worrying about missing rent at the end of the month)

4. Having an active and healthy social life/dating life (dating life only if desired)

5. Developing a strong sense of self (we are constantly developing ourselves so we should never be completely settled in who we are, but as an adult we should have some idea and be working on it actively)

6. Eating and living in a healthy manner (diet and exercise, y'all)

7. Decorating your living space (it's not college anymore, a home is somewhat more permanent and should reflect that)

8. Not moving every single year

9. Cleaning (this goes along with #7 and your house not looking like a dorm room)

*

This list basically boils down to exactly what Raven said when I asked her what being an adult meant. She said (and I'm paraphrasing) that being an adult meant having the ability to eat cake for dinner and the knowledge to realize you shouldn't eat cake for dinner. At least not every night (my addition). As a kid we all think being a grown-up will mean freedom. From rules, from homework, from our parents. But when we get there we realize that there are a whole a bunch of rules that were there for a reason, not to mention new rules like rent, debt, job performance, the list goes on. And now that we are grown and dependent primarily on ourselves the rules have become a lot more important. When you broke a rule as a kid you got sent to your room, maybe yelled at a little, perhaps even grounded. As an adult if you break a rule the consequences can be longer lasting. Don't go to work? Get fired. Don't pay rent? Lose your house. Don't pay your student loans promptly? You will never buy anything on credit ever. Seriously, it will be a struggle to get a credit card.

Now those might be exaggerated consequences of each event, but you get the idea. Consequences as big and very real in your adult years. So how do you manage all the rules and expectations of you while avoiding the very big and very real consequences and trying to have some fun while you hold on to parts of your childhood on the way?


That's not rhetorical, by the way. I don't have an answer. If anyone out there does I would love to hear it.

Every time I contemplate adulthood I can't help but picture my ideal of an Adult: my mother. I always thought as a child that someday (when I was 20 I think was the random age I picked) I would wake up and it would click, I would have superpowers just like her. I would be able to cook meals that rivaled a master chef, keep an apartment clean with basically no effort, wrangle difficult children (read my sister and I) with ease, run errands in a flash, and pop out of bed early every morning wide awake and happy to be that way.

Needless to say that did not happen on the morning of my 20th birthday. And I'm sure that wasn't what my mother's life was really like, but let me tell you - she made the toughest job in the world look so easy. Everyone's heard the saying that daughters eventually turn into their mothers, right? It's a pretty common trope on sitcoms and romcoms. It's supposed to be a bad thing, but that what I wanted more than anything else in the world.

But now that I am a grown-up I have to face the hard truth - I am so far away from being my mother. I'm sure my mother would tell me that that's okay. That I am just different and have my own strengths. Strengths she doesn't have, just as I don't have hers. But still, when I close my eyes and picture an adult, it isn't my face I see. It's hers.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's a goal I would like to work towards - becoming my mother. Maybe not in all ways. We are, after all, very different people and I know we both appreciate the differences. But I want to get better at the things I most admire her for. So I'm going to end this post the way I started it: with a list.

10 Ways To Be More Like My Mother

1. Be more organized in my routines and my home

2. Keep calm and carry on (my mother was and is a master of this one)

3. Live intentionally and with a purpose

4. Take more walks in nature - be more a part of nature

5. Be kind and loving in every interaction

6. Patience. Patience. Patience.

7. Listen more

8. Do what I love and find a way to do it for a living

9. Exercise more**

10. Pursue lifelong learning and enrichment

Maybe we all just fake it until we become it. We find an adult we respect, imitate them, and after a while it isn't imitation anymore. It's how most animals learn how to survive and thrive, after all. To all of you who aren't Owl Mom: Thanks for reading my ramblings about my mother. I can never find too many good things to say about her. I don't know if Owl Mom reads this blog, but if she does: Thank you to you, too Mom Owl. I learned it all from the best. Someday I want to be a grown-up like you - just like I wanted when I was a kid.

Time for bed like a responsible adult. Work in the morning, then I have a fun surprise planned for Raven. I wonder if she'll read the blog before we go to bed tonight...

Best wishes!
Owl


*If you're curious... I've got numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 down most days, but the others are a constant struggle.
**Some people say if they could look like their mother when they get to her age they'd be happy. I would be happy to look like my mother right now.