Someday, We’ll Be Grown Ups
I want to say Grandma, I just want to write and make people smile, is that so bad? Is that so bad? But instead I say, "I'll figure it out." That's all I know how to say. Isn't that what we're all really doing anyway? Just trying to figure this whole thing out?
One day, all of our dishware will match.
When someone stops by for coffee we won’t hand them a mug from Hershey Park 2008, but instead something red from a Williams-Sonoma collection. We’ll always remember to fold our clothes before they get too wrinkly, to take out the trash on the right day of the week. One day, we won’t throw wet towels on the floor. We’ll scrub toothpaste and makeup off the bathroom sink. We’ll never forget to pay our bills on time.
This crosses my mind every single day, every time the smoke alarm goes off because I will never cook as well as my mom. I look beside me and find my roommates. They don’t have a clue and neither do I. I wonder, sometimes, why we fake it. Why we pretend to have everything together, even when our grades are dropping and the number in our bank account is negative. No matter that our mothers were married at our age, and none of us can hold a relationship past the 6 week mark.
Grandma asks me what I want to do and I tell her I don’t know. I tell her this in front of everybody; on holidays, at weddings, during the commercial breaks of a reality TV show. I don’t know how to tell to her that I want to travel the world and befriend strangers and fall in love with intricate languages. I want to say Grandma, I just want to write and make people smile, is that so bad? Is that so bad? But instead I say, “I’ll figure it out.” That’s all I know how to say. Isn’t that what we’re all really doing anyway? Just trying to figure this whole thing out?
My grandma had a one year old baby at my age and I still sleep with a teddy bear. They say times have changed, but then they wonder why we’re falling so behind. I don’t think we are. It may seem like it, but there is no right or wrong time to do anything. We shouldn’t have to be on a set life schedule. My roommates and I don’t want to walk through a black and white world.
When I tell Grandma, “I’ll figure it out,” I’m not lying to her. Because one day, we will have it all together. I don’t know when, but we will. I know we will. We will remember everyone’s birthday without having to be reminded on Facebook. There will be pancakes on Sunday mornings, not remnants of greasy pizza on the kitchen counter. When someone asks us what we want to do, we’ll look around and be able to say, “I’m doing it.”
But today is not that day. Today, when our friends come over, we drink from different sized wine glasses. We wear the same clothes two days in a row, sometimes three if they still smell okay. When our mothers mention something about wanting grandchildren, we can’t even fathom an appropriate response. Today, we have late fees on our bills and wrinkles in our sheets. We focus too much on the boy who calls us pretty. We can’t even remember how old the Chinese leftovers are in our fridge.
One day, when we wear less mascara and can no longer stomach a mimosa at breakfast, this will all be different. But not today.
Our dishware doesn’t match today.
