Grownup Rulez

Note to Facebook readers: original post is here in case images don't show up and you really give a crap. Which I don't blame you if you don't...i wouldn't.

It's been awhile since I've ranted about life as a grownup, so I figure the latest installment is due. A few more things I now know at 31-turning-32 that I probably didn't think too much about when I was 21-turning-22

1. Life doesn't always follow the rules.
Common sense right? But it's so ingrained in us...get good grades. Go to university. Get a job. Get a spouse. Get a kid or two. Get retirement. Go die.

When things go off-track from that, especially when you've tried so hard to follow the rules within your power, it really throws you for a loop. Is it a disservice to teach your kids the Rules of Life? Or is better to prepare them for anything...regardless of education, marriage, etc? I think of something Christine once wrote...she was writing about a series of crappy things that had happened, and ended it with "so is life".

Indeed. What life is isn't the list of grades/university/job/spouse/kids/retirement/death.

Life is everything surrounding that...DUIs for one whole beer, weekend trips with friends, miscarriages, summer barbecue traditions, learning the political game at work, onset of adult allergies, the inability to be with the one you love for reasons beyond your control, figuring out that your paycheck doesn't pay the rent, medical issues that stop everything else in your life (pay your copays with a credit card or keep ALL receipts when made by cash, those f*ckers will come back saying you didn't pay your copay...uh how else did I get to walk through the door and see the doc?!), juggling family visits, calls to customer service for the billion things that always seem to go wrong (lesson learned: bang on "0" a bunch)....there should be a Checklist of Life that parents should teach their kids before they truly start their life as a grownup on their own. The checklist would be huge, but if you can crank out some of the obvious ones then you'll better equip your offspring so they're not curled in a fetal position crying with their Linus-style blanket.

2. Being an adult carries a tremendous amount of responsibility

Again, you'd think common sense right? Not so much...people think they know this, but they don't. Hell, I'm even guilty of this I know, I know, you thought I was flawless. Retarded behavior once acceptable in your youth doesn't cut it as an adult. I'm not talking about say, getting wasted the night before a final exam.

I'm talking sacrificing an immediate want for a future need. When you realize that you can't have that iPod because rent is due next week. When you're able to remember that you can't go travel with friends because you know your yearly car insurance bill is due to come in any day now and you'll have to live lean for awhile. It's anticipating the future need without it being blatantly in front of you in bill format.

When I had my Sentra, every year around January something major would happen that would cost me $1k-$2k. Still cheaper than buying a new car, but yeah it was a good chunk of money that I had to start anticipating as a result of driving a deathtrap. So as soon as I paid my credit card for that, I would put money away not in a "holy crap i lost my job" emergency fund, but in an "argh, this month x y z things came up and I don't have the cash!" fund.

It's also not a monetary responsibility. There's much more responsibility to those around you. Realizing that you can't be a brat to your mom anymore...she's simply just elderly and old-skool, which may have annoyed you as a kid but as an adult it's now your responsibility to manage the relationship and be the peacemaker. While I'm nowhere the same brat who slammed her bedroom door so often it broke off the hinges, I'm significantly better at dealing with my bizarro mother. It's that when you make a commitment to friends, you honor them. Everything from paying them back for $20 loaned or a ride to the airport yes, one time I accidentally drove to work and by the time I got there received a call from Carrie wondering when I was going to pick her up. STILL feel awful about that to this day. If you borrow something, you give it back as soon as possible in the same condition they gave it to you, even if it means inconveniencing yourself. Being a person of character.

As an adult, you don't have to do the above...but you learn pretty quickly that life works generally much better when you do.

3. Life is unfair

This cliche is used so often, you'd think we'd truly understand this by the time we're 5. In your teens (assuming you haven't had to deal with some earth shattering "grownup" tragedy like death of your parents) it seems more like "But it's not FAIR that i have to work while SoAndSo doesn't have to!" or "Stupid bus! It came and left early! Now I'm going to miss my exam!". Or like the person who was behind you in line for a raffle ticket wins.

It's more along the lines of deciding whether to abort your baby when you receive a prognosis with horrible odds. Deciding if you should continue to be with someone you love even though in return you won't receive what you so desperately crave. Debating whether your beloved pet's condition is severe enough to warrant euthanasia and which decision is the less selfish of the two. What to do when faced with a compulsive gambling spouse who is jeopardizing everything but insists things are under control...do you stay and suffer, do you battle it through and beg for counseling, and even then do you stick around when it gets worse in hopes it'll get better, do you just pack up and bail?

Life is often unfair not because a single event will occur...rather, it's unfair because oftentimes you are faced to choose between two crappy options of the same weight but drastically different consequences.

Sophie's choice.
**side note: I spent forever reading that book, dying to know what her stupid choice was. I should have just rented the movie. I didn't care about the movie, the plot, anything. I just wanted to know the choice. However when I started reading I wasn't sure when the "choice" would be made evident so I didn't just flip to the last page to check, figuring that if the choice came in early in the book it might be worth reading through. Oh, how mistaken I was. By the end of it I was like "really? She just has to pick which of her two kids has to die? Well what the hell that wasn't worth reading this behemoth novel over. She could have just said "I made a crappy choice. I killed my son". Of which, I don't remember which kid she chose now anyway.

4. For the most part, you did create your life

When you're younger, you're stuck going with the flow of whatever your parents/the law/the man make you do. So eventually it's like your teacher shoving you on stage for a school play...rehearsing is fine and all, but uhhh...wow...there's alotta people out there. Looking at you. Everyone...looking...at...you. And it's all on you. No one's reading you your lines. Something on the set might break, you'll have to improvise. Deviate from the original plan. Someone might deliberately try to sabotage you. Someone might screw up. But the choices and decisions made, even if made unprepared on the fly, got you for the most part where you are today.

Find me a CEO of a large, successful organization who just stumbled upon that position.

Granted, the "life is unfair" part can guide a significant part. Having to declare bankruptcy because you got cancer and have thousands of bucks of medical bills...yeah, that's outta your hands. However, a lot of other things ARE within your control. Tree falls on your house? Out of your control. Responsible enough to have double-checked yearly that you have adequate insurance? Within your control. (Although i did see on the news a guy who had a tree fall on his house, insurance covered it, was dropped from his insurance, then another tree landed on it. That would suck donkey balls. So obviously there's a juggle between this item and the unfairness of life.) Losing your job? Might be out of your control. Foresight to save up and cut back on expenses? Within your control. Ties into #2...if you shopped like a mofo all year then don't expect pity when you lose your job and have nothing. You CHOSE that path. At some point when you're a full-on grownup you're capable of stepping back and seeing all the steps YOU took to get to where you are, bad or good.

5. Relationships are not the same as in your youth

Not talking romantic relationships. We're talking friendships here. In your teens and in college, you can be buddies with everyone...no matter their gender. It's all good, 'cause it's not like for the most part anyone's rushing to get married and almost no one IS married. You remain firm in your belief that a guy can "just be friends" with a girl. And then you grow up and realize it's not the same when you're in the next stage of life.

The stage of being a working professional, not a new grad. Of having friends that are married, divorced, co-habitating, on-again-off-again. Having kids, wanting kids, losing kids. Home buying. Not being able to afford to buy. Not buying because of a career decision. This a whole different stage in life, and relationships don't work the same way as in your teens/college years/early 20s.

The first time I realized this was when I got engaged. Suddenly, 90% of all guys I knew fell off the face of the earth. I was always the girl who hung out with the guys. I was the one who tagged along with the guys when they did retarded crap. I studied a program for 4 years with all guys minus ONE girl (thank the lord for Natalie). I went into a male-dominated industry where I'll be in a meeting with 25 guys...and me. Suddenly having a ton of guys mysteriously disappear was very odd for the girl who prided herself on being kind of a guy's girl.

It's not that I was some femme fatale...rather, the nature of the relationships with them was forced to change as a result of my status change. While maybe it was okay to hang out and watch a DVD on the couch with a buddy doing shots, it's not appropriate anymore when you have a significant other. It's okay to go to lunch with guys...but doing a late night dinner at 9? Not so much. Basically daylight sort of impacts what's acceptable when you're in a serious relationship/marriage (or they are).

I guarantee someone's going to argue with me on this, but consider that I'm the smacktalking chick who's not exactly girly-girl in her views on things. I have some married guy friends. I can go to lunch with them...it's public, it's outside, it's daylight...there's a 1-2 hour time limit...basically any level of sexiness is removed. If i were to go to dinner with any of them, their wives would be like "wtf?! Why am i not invited?"...and if they're busy, then that's even weirder...maybe the odd time if there's a one-time reason for it (cant think of any, but obviously there's exceptions to everything), but overall it would just be bizarre to just have dinner with any of my married guy friends if their wives aren't there. We would reschedule for when said wife was available. If i were single, no matter how much their wives trust me, I'm sure there would be at the very least smidgen of worry if I were to just be having dinner while they're not there. It's not so far left thinking to think that things can happen after-hours. Even if you're positive it wouldn't happen...well...things can happen. Things DO happen. Why even risk it?


It's not that you lose your independence. It's that it's not appropriate.

Consider it another way. When you're in high school and you go out, if the boy paid, you definitely knew you were on a date. As an adult, you could go out and the dude could be like "hey it's cool I got it" and you'd still be like "wtf...so is this a date? is it not?". In high school, dating is explicit and clear. Everyone knows who's involved with who, who's off limits. When you're an adult, you learn that you can date multiple people at once, bone different people at once, there's no formal definition to relationships at times. At any given moment I know people who are completely clueless to the nature or seriousness of a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Short of an explicit friends-with-benefits relationship, there's typically at least one person in a close guy/girl friendship who's wondering if maybe it's something more or wanting more.

Which, to bring it back, is that as you get older no matter how much of a guy's girl you used to be or how you're the sensitive guy who just relates better to chicks, you need to learn to form friendships with people of your own gender. As a dude, don't think for a second your relationship won't change the instant she gets a boyfriend. And for a chick, you think your best buddy's girlfriend...then wife...will be okay with you two constantly doing things one-on-one? Nope. Argue all you want. And then go out in the real world and open your eyes. Your role, your priority, changes.

Plus, it's always odd when you see someone who only has someone of the opposite sex as their friend. I know a chick who only has guy friends. It's pretty clear to everyone but all of them that subconsciously they're just waiting in the wings for their chance with her. (Ladder Theory stuff) Men can't see through the BS of another chick if they're close enough to be friends because that underlying even minute attraction to anything with a vagina creates a filter. Chicks, lacking in even the remote 0.1% chance of anything romantic happening that could occur with a guy friend, can see all. We see when a chick is fake, when they're acting, when they're being friendly in order to get attention from their guy friends, when they're incredibly annoying when they can't flirt their way through a friendship. You see what's wrong with them and why other chicks don't want to be around them...which is usually that girls that only have guy friends feel incredibly threatened by other women.

Meh, this point is pretty disjointed. I'm just saying...relationships that were okay when you were younger are just no longer appropriate when you grow up. Don't kid yourself into thinking the old adage of "guys and girls can just be friends!"...there's strings attached. And the significant other will always, at some point, raise a concern (or have a hissy fit, pick your method).

**Note to the exception: everyone's got an exception or two. I'm not saying to have ZERO friends of the opposite sex if they're single...I'm saying, overall. Like...Bryan...you're the shiz. I trust you 100000% with my life, and you're one of the most faithful friends I've ever had. I'd give you a kidney in a heartbeat. But if I had 4 other guys in my life even remotely like you and our friendship...then that'd be weird. Kraig would, and should, put the kibosh on that. Plus, you don't live here...if we lived nearby and hung out frequently till super late, it would be pretty inappropriate and I would have no desire to cockblock GirlfriendX at those hours or have her kick my ass.

6. When you're an adult, you get tired of yourself quickly

As an adult, any drama in your life just drains, tires, and bores you. You don't even find it interesting, let alone have the desire to tell other people about it. Far cry from when you could tell the same drama story over and over in your early 20s.

I also say this because I realize I've written A LOT, it's riddled with typos, I'm too lazy to edit and cut it down, and I'm tired, so...what I'm saying is right now, I don't even find myself interesting.

So is life!