On Becoming an Adult

When I was little, I thought that adults wanted to floss their teeth and clean the house. They wanted to do all those things that I had to do and hated, like eating foods that I found disgusting. Being an adult would be wonderful, I believed, because I would do all the same things I already had to do, but I would want to do them. I also believe that all adults went to bed at 10pm. My parents told me their bedtime was 10pm, and I certainly wasn't up that late to check. Little did I know.

Now that I've joined this elite group we call grown-ups, I've realized some things:

1 - My mom and dad probably weren't really going to bed at 10, but they could tell us that because saying that they had no bedtime at all probably would have been too much for me to handle. Becoming an adult means that you transcend bedtime, but it also means that you feel it a lot more if you forgo bedtime altogether.

2- While some foods, like peas, do become delicious when your tastes mature, some still aren't that great. However, being an adult means that you determine the menu. So Spanish rice never makes it onto our menu. If I don't like it, I'm not going to cook it. That's why we almost never ate French Toast growing up; Mom didn't like it. Adulthood brings not only improved in enjoyment of many foods, but also reduction of necessity of eating foods you don't like.

3- Adults don't particularly want to vacuum the couch any more than kids do. However, they want the couch to be vacuumed badly enough to do it anyway. The pain of the problem is greater than the pain of the solution. I took a major step toward adulthood when my uber-messy roommate moved out and I decided that I wanted my bed made and my floor free of clutter just because I liked having my room clean. The journey was complete when I started teaching Scout to admire how pretty the Living Room looks when she's done cleaning up her toys at night.

4 - I'll probably never want to floss. The rewards are a little farther away than even my adult mind can grasp. Accompanying a friend to have her rotting teeth pulled out and replaced by dentures helped, but even that wasn't thoroughly motivating. I'll go ahead and confess that I still don't floss my teeth every day (sorry, Mom). But I do do it often because, for me, flossing your teeth is the ultimate sign of maturity. Flossing is an activity engaged in by the most adult of adults, those who really have it all together. So, every time I take those extra 45 seconds to floss, I feel really good. I feel like I have my life together. Flossing is my way of telling myself that I am an adult and I no longer need to be told to pick up my socks, make my bed or eat my vegetables. Flossing makes me feel old, in the best sense of the word.