Grown Folk

Today we looked at another house. It has five bedrooms. And four bathrooms. And 2400 square feet. There is a dishwasher and a finished basement and a wood-burning fireplace with andirons (what is an andiron?) that JP says are probably 100 years old.

And I am sitting here in our two-bedroom, one bathroom, 800-square foot apartment and it boggles my mind that I am entering a life that includes me buying things that I have no idea what they are, just that it’s good to own old andirons and there is value to it all.

We were at my best friend’s place tonight for dinner. She and her husband just had a baby. She and I, nearly 15 years ago, used to spend the majority of our time sitting on the roof of her porch, in the house she lived in off campus, listening to Janis Joplin, eating processed food, dating unseemly boys. Her husband mentioned to me what a light sleeper she is, how hard of a time she has going to sleep. I was reminded in that instance of how well I already knew that fact, like it was burned in me. I remember vividly how she looks when she’s first awake, seeing as how I spent countless nights asleep right next to her in that way we we’d never do now, even though we are even closer today, but as we did for years as young girls.

And now she’s a mom and a wife and that was all such a long time ago.

This happens to everyone. I know. I’m not, we’re not, you’re not, unique. I am, actually, pretty old to be out there buying a house for the first time. But, you know, I got married. And then divorced. And then married again. In between all of that I lost myself, found myself, lost myself again and then settled on what rose to the top and then made the best of it. As it turned out, the residue, the detrius, the remains? That pretty much sums up me. I am unfinished, and I am a hodge podge, and I like it that way.

So I’m late to the game, but it seems OK. We have nice careers, a nice dog and the occasional truffle-infused goat cheese. We’ve been blessed with friends and family and options and lots of open doors and windows during a time where it has been anything but for too many people we know. I could not have been like you, and been ready, and not thought any of this was anything other than A Big Deal, because I had to be 33, and divorced, and a little worse for the wear.

I had to learn a good thing when I saw it, I guess.

So now it’s a Saturday night, and I am home, with my husband, drinking scotch, being quiet. I stay home most Saturday nights these days. We both work a lot, we think a lot about work, we love work, so weekends become pretty sacred and quiet and mostly a time for us to pass out and not worry about setting the alarm to hit the gym before work. And if we went out, to the clubs, to the bars, to the whatevers, we’d miss all that sacred quiet.

That’s what happens when you become grown folk. Free time becomes sacred quiet instead of an opportunity to make some really bad choices regarding men and pants, both of which have been influenced by any number of alcoholic beverages, all of which have the word “bomb” following them.

I have always said that I would never, have never, subscribed to the idea of any period of my life  being “the best,” especially in the past tense of it all. To say that any previous era was the pinnacle seemed limited in thinking, not to mention my own ability. I’ve always been of the opinion that life is what you make of it, and every era offers something new and exciting if you embrace it in the right way.

It feels…awfully comforting to walk around these 2400-square feet homes, offering up more space than I know what to do with these days, and know that I’m considering owning it all. I like how that feels, I’m not ashamed to say, and I feel as though it might be one of the things to embrace about being a grown up.  I suppose, more than anything, it feels as though I’m proving my theory true, that there are always new and exciting things worth embracing in your life. Always.

I went and saw an advanced screening of Julie & Julia this week. It’s delightful in a way I can’t describe, I can only implore you to go and see and experience. Most of you who read me these days are all about your passions and how they play out, how they could play out, and how if you did so, or are doing so, you could, or do, embrace your life in a way that would give greater meaning to the minuscule.  To you all, I say, it is the movie for you. I was on the brink of tears for all of it.

Especially the scene where it rang all-too-true. I was on the front page of the NY Times, too. That day my phone blew up from talk shows and TV shows and literary agents and I wrote a book and oh my God I sat there in that theater thinking – you have genuinely had this experience, you lucky girl, you!

Julia Child was in her 40s when she changed the world. She loved her life, her husband, she embraced her passions and it didn’t matter when it happened, just that it happened.  And she was brave and fearless and courageous – all of the words that mean the same thing – and she changed the world.

This is why I believe that being 33, buying a house and the rest, is not the end but the beginning of things I do not know about just yet.

And so I’m sitting here in our tiny apartment, hoping that I’m simply on the brink of…something. Even if it’s just andirons and what they mean, it’s something new and it’s all potential. It’s all 2400-square feet of potential.