All grown up

Right now I'm feeling like an adult, but this has made me realize that I spend most of my time feeling like a kid pretending to be an adult. Playing house, essentially. It's not until I'm in a position to make a huge life-changing decision (i.e. spend a LOT of money) that I feel like I'm grown up...and an inept one, at that.

I remember my friend Jill once saying that she thought our brains all get stuck at the age of twenty-three. We're young, but living on our own, have jobs, grown up bodies and such. As we age, and our bodies get older, our jobs get tiresome, but our brains still think we're twenty-three. I think that's true. I often look around at my house, my kids, my life, really, and think I'm not old enough to be living in my second house, have a 6-year-old child plus two more, a dog who's considered old but I got her when I was 26. But I am old enough, because I do have all these things. And that's scary to me.

I could get into my fears of time passing too quickly, my anxiety about death, but for my own mental health I'm going to avoid that for now. I'm feeling very grown up, however, because we're trying to decide what to do with our house, or if we even stay in this house. And in the midst of the fun of planning for "someday" and my fantasizing about main floor laundry we started actually doing something instead of just talking about it. Contractors have come to the house, given bids, and tonight we're talking to a realtor (eeek!). People who know what they are talking about have been telling is what's realistic, what's do-able, what it will cost. And we're balancing that against finding a house that already has what we want to add to this one. But that means giving up our yard, being further from good friends, losing money on the sale.

I'm not generally afraid of change, as a matter of fact I often look forward to it. But I am afraid of making the wrong decision. And because we're talking about a house and not an expensive dress, I'm not only worried about making the right decision for me, but for future owners of this house. If it were a dress I would only be worried about how my hips look, if it were too short for me. But whether we sell this house in a month or in 30 years, someone else is going to live here someday and I want it to be a house that people walk into and want to buy. I love my house, and I want it's future owners to love it, too.

I watched my parents buying, renovating and building homes all through my childhood. It seemed like such a grown-up thing to do, making decisions about adding windows to the family room or how big the sunroom should be. Rolling out blueprints. Choosing flooring, fixtures and toilets. And now, I'm on the verge of doing all that.

Since we moved into this house 5 years ago we've talking about what we would do to it someday. Someday might not be here just yet, but it's getting awfully close. For these last several years I've been excited to get to this point, could hardly wait! But now that it's almost here I'm realizing it's not fun, it's stressful! It's overwhelming! And I'm not grown-up enough to handle it!

But I am. I want to be. I've been praying that we make the right decision, whatever that may be. Financially. Aesthetically. Keeping in mind what will be best for my family. It just occurred to me; maybe that's what makes me feel like an adult. Maybe putting in the time and thought, weighing the options, taking our time, maybe those are the things that make this feel so grown-up. When I was 23 I had an apartment I couldn't afford and a car payment well beyond my means. I suppose growing up isn't so bad.