Grown up taking a trip

I woke up at five-thirty this morning and was immediately overcome by a parading army of thoughts about packing and shopping for food and locating the cooler in the basement and washing a load of towels and whether or not I have enough clean underwear for our trip.

We're leaving tomorrow morning as early as I can muster the courage to leave my warm blankets, and my husband behind.

I keep waiting for the real grown up to show up and take over.

The same thing happened at Scouty's first birthday party.  I was used to these kinds of affairs.  The aunts were bring pasta and fruit salad.  There was a cake from the grocery store and the weather was sunny.  It was my first time being in charge of something like this, though, and it felt decidedly like a passage into adulthood.

Between greeting everybody and hanging streamers and keeping track of my one year old baby, I barely had a moment to sit down and eat the sushi I was up all night preparing, and I remember thinking, "Baby birthday parties are kind of hard.  Isn't a real grown up going to take over so that I can sit down and eat and talk to my friends?"

Remember how your first baby's first year of life was filled with moments like that?  My first wait a minute, I'm not a real adult and I have no idea what I'm doing moment was when I was in labor and it was time to push.  My sister was holding one of my legs and Kurt was holding the other and I was being swept away by an overwhelming urge and pain that was making my eyes roll back in my head.  I looked up at these two concerned faces, staring down into my bloated red face and shooting anxious glances at one another and thought, "Woah, hold the phone.  Who the fuck put you two in charge of this?"

A few months earlier we'd been drinking 40's in the back yard.  We were college kids who partied before class and spent the whole time either giggling or falling asleep across our desks, my note taking a waning pen mark that was a straight line right off the end of the page.  They were letting us have a baby?

I'm used to it now.  When my sister comes to visit, I can't stop picking up dishes and sweeping debris off the front walk.  She gets agitated watching me and says, "Why don't you sit down?  You're running around like a... crazy person."

Although, when she says, crazy person, I know she really means mom.  She means, We have watched our own mother and our GRANDMOTHER behaving like all our lives, and now you're acting just the same way.  I know that this is what she means and that she's right, but there's nothing I can do to stop it.  The grown up switch got flipped in me a long time ago, and there's no sitting on the porch relaxing when there are like... pine needles everywhere and somebody might need something more to drink.

With vacations, though, I still feel like I should be gearing up to fall asleep and complain in the back seat while my mom and dad argue in the front.  I feel like somebody else should packing clothing and diapers and snacks.  I keep looking around for the real grown ups, but there aren't any.  There probably won't ever be any real ones around here again.  There will only be me, and it might never totally sink in that I'm really the one in charge.  I'm making the memories now, instead of having them.

Anyway, it's six-thirty now and I've got a to do list like a mother fucker.  It seems scary, but the reality is that we'll be on the beach tomorrow for dinner.  We'll be meandering through the farmer's market at Manteo on Saturday morning.  We'll have gingerbread for breakfast and spend all week in the sand.  I don't need to be a grown up for that stuff.  Not really.





Manteo Harbor by bumeister1



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I'm not sure about my internet status for the upcoming week.  I may or may not be here, so go ahead and check in.  If I'm stranded without a signal, I'll see you on the 28th!


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