Being A Grown-Up

Every single day without fail I walk past a mirror, babe in arms, and think: who am I? Who is this person with two children at the age of 27? How did I go from being the person I was before the babies to the person I am now? Where did my old irresponsible life go?

It has all seemed to happen so quickly (real time: three years ago, pretty much to the day). Pregnancy, babies, countryside, houses, baking, moving. What happened to the old me? I don’t miss that time, much, but I do miss the freedom. The times when you could take off without giving anyone else a second thought, though the closest I got to doing this was driving to IKEA spur-of-the-moment when I was 17. Wild, I know.

 

I remember being a teenager, when all that grown-up stuff is merely a glimmer of stress in your future. If I could write a letter to my teenage self, this is what I would say I have to look forward to:

– Buying houses: hopefully in the next year or so our house up north (currently tenented) will sell and we can look at buying a southern palace of our own. Easier said than done; our old house was bought at the height of the market 6 years ago yet a comparable place down here will cost twice as much. Plus we’ve both gone self-employed since. The next two years will be a time of tightening belts, organizing finances and dreaming of the next step.

– Taxes: nothing bores me more than taxes, whether it’s council tax (EXPENSIVE!), car tax or HM Revenue and Customs phone calls, which are legendary painful.

– Cars and all that jazz: I love to drive a nice car and we’ve been in the market for new wheels since our sunroof started leaking last year (fine for summer, damp for winter). I find the MPHs, ABS, MPGs and PAS a bit ARGH but at least it’s easy to compare car insurance these days with one of those online tools.

– Work: having to earn a living is such a drag. Seriously though, remember when you didn’t have to think about where your money came from? I’ve had a job from the age of 15 and remember when I earned £80 a week – it felt like a bloody fortune. I’d be lucky to feed our family for a week on that much now. Not including wine, obviously.

– Disciplining and potty training: I actually think that one thing I’m pretty good at is discipline. Elfie is so very well-behaved and I know I can take her to any situation outside the home and she will do us proud. Potty training, on the other hand…. ugh. Cleaning pee off the floor is pretty soul-destroying and don’t even get me started on how many times I’ve put our sofa covers through the wash.

– Cooking: I loooove to cook, we all know that. But on the days when the kids have been hard work all I want to do is watch trash TV with a glass of wine followed by a bath, cocoa and bed. I don’t want to think about what new and interesting things I can do with beef mince and then scrape half of it out the carpet because we’re still learning how to operate cutlery.

– Other parents: most of them are fine, lovely even. Some of them…

Come on, what have I missed? What else is a total pain in the bum now we’re grown-ups?

I was very kindly sponsored to write this blog post about being a grown-up. Thanks!

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4 Comments

  1. Having to work for a living is definitely the biggest pain in the bum of being a grown up. Other things include… cleaning your skirting boards (which I never do!), doing laundry (which I have to do or else I would have to go around in my PJs all the time, not entirely appropriate for work), and making polite conversation with people you’d rather shoot yourself in the face than have to talk to… x

    Posted 12.21.12 Reply
    • alice wrote:

      I never clean my skirting boards either! Though I once cleaned a radiator… Urgh, I HATE polite conversation. Have to do that all too often. xx

      Posted 1.2.13 Reply
  2. Tiredness and little time to lie in! Merry Christmas

    Posted 12.27.12 Reply
    • alice wrote:

      Lie in? What’s a lie in??! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas xx

      Posted 1.2.13 Reply