On being an adult

Being a grown up is hard. SO hard. Like, when I was a kid all I could ever think about was how I couldn't wait to be a grown up so I could stay up late, eat whatever I wanted for dinner, never have to do homework ever again, kiss boys, and ultimately bestow a list of rules on my own children and smile and shake my head at them when they say "I can't wait 'til I'm a grown up!"

Oh what I wouldn't give to spend one more carefree day as a child. Of course I'd want to come back to my grown up life because without it, I wouldn't have my husband, or my sweet baby, or my dog, or the great friendship I now have with my own parents and brother, or an amazing sister-in-law, or a house, or the ability to eat cereal for dinner if I feel like it.

But being a grown up is still hard. Bills pile up. And when you pay those, more bills pile up. And then you get a dog. And vet bills and dog food bills pile up. Then you buy a house and the mortgage never stops needing to be paid. Then your air conditioning unit craps out and you're forced to put on your big-boy britches, call Sears (which your childhood self would gasp at) and install a new unit for 4 times the cost of your monthly mortgage payment. Then you pop out a kid. And the hospital bills, pediatrician bills, food bills, clothing bills, and daycare bills pile up. And suddenly you're sitting on the living room steps in tears as you and your husband talk about options for cutting back expenditures and figuring out how to squeak by until you get your massive tax refund in April. (Lord, please let it be a massive refund!)

And as the world of piling bills and shelling out money and donating your organs to pay for a grocery cart full of healthy veggies and fruits to feed your husband who probably won't eat them, and your child who has no other choice, continues to rotate on it's axis, you too must continue to rotate. You must continue to find the balance between family, friendships, cleaning house, going to your job, and keeping up with personal hygiene. And by the time you snuggle and play with your kid, kiss on your hubby, have that random girls night dinner (finally), empty the dishwasher and put away the laundry, and fall into bed after a long week of work, you realize you only washed your hair once in five days and that the stubble on your legs is so long you could cause your husband to bleed out if you even attempted to rub up against him in bed.

Your pants no longer fit, which they haven't since you gave birth, but you can't figure out why they are still so tight considering you feel like you're stretched so thin that you barely have time to eat...until you realize that the stress monster is similar to the cookie monster and you didn't HAVE to buy the 3 for $1.00 chocolate chip cookies at subway for lunch...and eat them all at once...but oh my-LANTA are they delicious.

And while you've always enjoyed coffee, you're now thinking about hooking up an intravenous line to your left arm and purchasing stock in Folgers and Keurig because with all the coffee you buy and drink, your stock options alone could probably pay your mortgage and put your child through college.

At the end of the day, when you're supposed to be able to brush off the stresses of the day, close your eyes and relax, all you can see behind your eyelids is your latest gas bill and how much you'd love to have a new pair of jeans that actually button without giving you a massive muffin-top, but in order to rid the muffin-top you need to work out, but your tired ass is so unmotivated that only Chris Powell (Extreme Makeover weight loss edition) could get you off the couch and on the treadmill, and oh maybe he could convince you to wash your hair more than once this week because while nobody wants to see your back fat rolls, they certainly don't want to see them with greasy hair hanging over them. But he's probably expensive...seeing as he's a celebrity and all.

So instead you lay awake in bed thinking up get rich quick schemes, wondering if your husband will really miss his 65 inch TV when you sell it for $200 on Craig's list...and then the baby cries and you're forced out of your "whoa is me" fog, back into mommy mode.

And then you glance down at that perfect little life you created. Unknowing of your struggles. Uncaring if you're rich, or wearing the latest fashions. Non-judgmental of your stringy, dirty hair. You glance down the hall to your snoozing husband. So peaceful snuggling with the tiny dog that he didn't have to even like, but he loves like she's the last dog on earth. The man that stands by you no matter what you smell/look/act like. The man that watched you be cut open, stitched back together, have an impacted bowel, and STILL wanted to rub up on you 2 days after giving birth. And you realize...even if my entire house fell down. If I was left for broke. As long as I have my family, I'll survive.

Being an adult sucks sometimes. It's hard. It's expensive. But it really is as great as I thought it would be when I was a kid.

Well, minus the bills.