Adulthood is a Crock.

At some point, we are all supposed to become adults. We outgrow our stuffed animals and then we outgrow diaries with locks on them, and then boy bands and eventually, we outgrow friends we always thought we would have and the accountability-free lives we thought would last forever. Some people reached this far before the geriatric age of 28. Most people, I suppose. I have posted about all of my friends living in what is generally referred to, with fear and distaste, as "The Real World." Definitions of this Real World vary from person to person. Some think it starts with a family. Others, a salary job. For many people, it is not anything they have ever had to think about. They walked through that entrance fresh out of college, bee-lining into their career path and probably won't look back until years from now, when they are watching a college football game, thinking about glory days or when their kid studies abroad and they wonder why they never traveled. Ah, there I go again. Regarding the concept with contempt. And yet...
Last week, I accepted a job. A real one. I am second in command of a forty person staff, and I make an actual salary. I brew coffee and grab a protein bar in the morning, and hope to get out of work before dark. That never happens, and I find myself flipping through radio channels in my car, and condescending those rush-hour drivers whom I deem unworthy of the downtown streets. I wear slacks to work. I wear lipstick. Who am I?
Honestly, I love this job. I am happy and lucky and pinch myself every single day to make sure that all of this is really happening. But wait a minute. Pinch myself to make sure that all of what is really happening? My apartment. With its fireplace and hardwood floors and long panel curtains. My commute, the one that drives me through downtown Denver where I get to look at the early morning Rockies and all the interesting souls that find themselves in a city. My new job, where I walk carpeted halls, keys jangling from inside my pocket, answering a Nextel phone when it beeps at my hip. I pinch myself to make sure that everything I did not ever think I would want is happening.
When I took this job, it was a career move. I knew that going into the interview. This is not the kind of job that you leave in six months. Maybe not even in a year. This is the kind of job you get and keep. My goodness. I have never had one of those. For the first time in years, I can get a good look at the road I am on. It's a fairly straight path, it seems. The end is not necessarily in sight, but it is not curving ten feet ahead of me, either. An attempt at planning is no longer futile, as it has been. My friends ask me if I want to do something in April, and I can say yes. Did you read that right? Did I say that right? Is that right?
The other night, I went to a company Christmas party at one of the most exclusive apartment buildings in Denver. It was beautiful and there were hors d'oeuvres and the dress code was "Business casual." I drove there straight from work, which means that business casual is how I dress daily.
Last night, I realized that I haven't looked at the stars since I moved to Denver.
Therein lies the challenge. The challenge is in the balance, isn't it? The girl who loves soap bubbles and still plays in the sprinklers is wholly confused by the one who oohed at a glass-walled apartment and its view of the city. We're not getting along all the well right now, me and me. Back to the challenge; Be both. Too many people lose the glitter of being a kid. Being an adult is supposed to mean that you arrange and adjust and schedule the sprinklers, but that you do not run into them any more. Well. Whatever. It's not about holding on to your youth, necessarily, but to lightheartedness, whimsy. Keeps you nimble and smiling. Keeps you from feeling bogged down by anything at all. Go outside, look up at the stars, and try to feel nothing. When the air warms, go to a park and run in the sprinklers. Stretch your arms out from your sides, spin around in a circle. And then try to be bothered by something that is happening in your life. Youthfulness is the ideal, and not aesthetically. Earn your wrinkles through smiles. Reach for deep crows feet. It means that you didn't let the real world get you. Showing age and showing years are very different things, and my newest feat will be to remain during progress. I don't mind getting older, but it should not mean that I have to grow up. Not all the way.