Grown Up

The thing about being an adult is that it has it’s ups an downs, it’s perks and suckage if you will. Sometimes I see my baby cousins rushing the whole adulthood thing. To them adulthood means freedom, your own place, independence. They don’t see the red tape where it also means bills, job, rent and other such responsibilities that give you crow’s feet. Adulthood.

My baby sister graduates next year from medical school. Her goal is to practice emergency room medicine. Next week she goes to Ipswitch to do a wine tasting and have a day in the country with her friends. I am worried about her at the wine tasting. Does she know to eat as she drinks so she doesn’t get trashed too quickly? I hope she isn’t planning on getting trashed. Then I remember she does things like drives. I still see her with her little frame, curly sue perm and lunchbox only going to school half a day. Oops.

Same with my other cousins. One of them had a girlfriend this year. Nevermind he made the Dean’s List at Case Western. He had a girlfriend. I wanted to inform him he was too young to date. He could wait until he was at least one hundred. Women are crazy. Well I guess he learned that lesson because he dumped her because surprise, she was crazy. I know how crazy young women can be at that age because guess what, I was one.

Between the ages of nineteen to twenty one I learned never to lean on a guy. I also learned men have no feelings, deal with it. Of course there was the lesson that to cry over a guy was stupid, and to fight over a man was even stupider. When I see my little cousins learning these lessons I have sort of a sense of humor about it.

When I was home I saw they wrecked my old high school. Sure, those days of my life sucked but when your school is ripped down a part of your history is erased. Going past there I remembered the old days. It seems like yesterday I had these dreams and goals and at the same time was lugging books to third period in building 5. My homework is long done and building five is just a pile of rubble. They taught me plenty in school, they just didn’t teach me how to react when my beloved computer lab was torn down. Did they remember to preserve my essay hung in there?

Eh, probly not.

My uncle of course is an art teacher at the high school. He painted the mural in the new pool. It was just yesterday that we were kids, and as a young buck he would come over my house in between excursions. His hair would be peroxide yellow, and his arms scraped from skateboarding. He would tell my mom about his latest painting, and my mom, being the much older sister, would pawn our leftovers on the starving artist. He would say to my mom, “Microwave the food extra long. I like burnt food.” Now he is a father of two and married. His hair is blonde, but not peroxide. He still skateboards though.

How time flies.

My brother of course is married. That’s an odd one, almost three years. This is someone who’s only loves were science and football. Does his wife know that he was a finalist in the No Bathing Contest at football camp in high school? Either way, that phase is over. He’s still in school, MD. /PhD. He may be in school forever. My dad said he will make a ton of money when he gets out.

But he may never get out until his kids are in school. So maybe they can make a ton of money together.

My high school classmates are marrying off one by one. People get in touch with me and I don’t know who they are because their last names have changed. When I put two and two together it finally clicks. Then they tell me about their children. Most of the time I am happy for them. They were nice people who moved on and did the normal things. However, one or two have made me gasp.

One young women I remember had to carry around the battery operated baby for Life Skills Class. Sick and tired of having to tend to this child, she removed the batteries. Our teacher failed her, citing that in real life you couldn’t take the batteries out of the baby. Now this genius has three children. They seem stable and well cared for.

Maybe they are battery operated.

Some people only seem to get crazier after high school. An old friend of mine who had  problem with lying has only gotten more mentally unstable. After lying about being pregnant several times, she got knocked up in our junior year only to complain that the child was expensive. My mother, sick of her lies informed her real children in fact did cost money. Needless to say, she had two more kids after the first with Baby Daddy who took off never to be heard from again. Now she is married to someone else, and they had a big fight on facebook the other day. It was over plans for her husband’s birthday. Neither can spell. Where is Maury when you need him?

Classy.

Of course we also managed to pass my old elementary school. It made me think of sliding down the slide and fundraisers, when those were my  big worries. Then later I was reminded again when I was at my grandfather’s party. Recently, a classmate of mine from elementary school passed away. A little bit of a troublemaker, his regular place was in the principals’ office.  After an arson charge, he was kicked out of our school and went to a probationary facility for youthful offenders from what I understand. I have gotten close to his brother online, a polar opposite of this young man. That’s how I found out about his passing. Apparently he was in jail and contracted what those who know him believe to be pneumonia and the fluid filled his lungs and blamo.

My Aunt Helen Jones was at my Pop Pop’s party and it turns out the man who lives with her as sort of a caretaker who does prison ministry knows my former classmate and had actually tried to save him. On his quest to save my wayward school chum to redemption, the two became friends. Apparently, my comrade had stayed a night at my aunt’s house which was crazy. Her housemate has wanted to look me up to ask how I knew him since I wrote a note for his family on the memorial book.

Sure, my former classmate was a bit of a bully. It wasn’t just me but everyone. I remember we were all sort of scared of him when we went to school, but if you could take him he sort of respected you. At times I liked him because he tortured a bitchy teacher or two. But in the end, he was fighting everyone and the world and that’s what got him. He didn’t know when to stop fighting and that’s what did him in. Growing up was too much and adulthood killed him. One is tough and one is almost impossible sometimes.

Where am I in this mix?

I live in Manhattan in a shoebox. I am unmarried. I am following my dreams and my heart which means I am perpetually broke. I wonder how the hell time has flown by. I have no children but ten puppets that I am mother to. I just wrote a book that will come out in a month. I have been on TV a bunch of times and still think the guys on America’s Most Wanted are hot.

I start every sentence with I which probably means I am not ready for a husband or children.

I could always move back home to my parent’s house, and my mother could make me breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

Then I remember she would make me vacuum.

I think I will keep cracking at this adulthood thing.

Love,

April