For Ever and Ever

It's not late. I'm not tired. My hip hurts a little today and so does my back, but all in all, the things that cycle through my life that get me blogging just aren't there. Of course that makes me ask myself, why does the world have to be crashing down for me to post? It doesn't. I could post about exciting things -- fun things -- sexy things --- or I could just ramble a bit and see what happens.

Do you remember when you realized you were a grown up? It's jolting, isn't it? One minute you're happy as Larry, living out your life as you have been since your early twenties, and then one day, you're grown up. And it has very little to do with age. It's just that all of a sudden, you're the grown up. And it's not always fun. Sometime it is. But other times...

I've become, in my opinion, a nagging-parental-type-roommate. Maybe I've always been that way and now I'm just becoming self-aware. Ask Kirby and Zubov. I mean, I literally asked them to pick up their shoes the other day. Their shoes. And the XBOX! Shoes and videogames: the bane of my mother during my teenage years. I remember that I was often being asked to pick up my shoes and clean up the video game console and cords before leaving the room and I never understood why. They were just going to end up there the next day. But see, I get it now... I think. Regardless, I'm asking the same of my roommates. I've become a grown up.

I just shuddered.

You want more? Earlier today as I drove off to meet Keaton for lunch, I noticed my yard, badly in need of mowing, and the leaves starting to fill the driveway, and I'll be fracked if I didn't have the urge to stop and rake and mow and --- brace yourself -- do yardwork, all by myself. As a kid I always thought my parents were insane with the amount of time they spend tending to the lawn, but I get it -- you hit a certain age or mental state where you live in a house and you actually WANT to do yardwork.

Growing up is kind of scary. And for a long time I thought I was grown up. I've had jobs. I've supported myself. I've been in long-term loving relationships. I've bought furniture. And appliances. I've driven across the country. And so much more. But none of that was really being grown up. Technically, I can perform brain surgery (albeit to horrific results) --- doesn't make me a brain surgeon. Doing grown up things only goes so far.

But there's a day, or a week, or heck, maybe it's a drawn out confusing year, when everything shifts and priorities are reevaluated. Video game consoles seem like clutter, not the awesome distraction they were in youth. You spend more time at work and paying bills than you do at home and going out with friends. Yards seem bigger and weedier. Leaves fall faster from the sycamore out front. And everyonce in a while you nag a roommate like you were once nagged, and you feel old.

So, rather than sit here and think about the yard or the shoes chillin' in the family room, I'm going to go watch The Amazing Race and think of one of my favorite poems. It always makes me smile and reminds me that staying young at heart will help as I face adulthood head on.

Hope you enjoy it as well. And if you're feeling grown-up, go do something childish after you read this. I know I will.

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
-A.A. Milne's Now We are Six (1927)