The Grown Up Child Turns 40

Zombeavers: It's for children.

On the 18^th of May, I turned 40. This is typically a crisis birthday for women, and I recall my mother’s apprehension about aging, not to mention all the comedy sketches dealing with a woman who turns 40, like this one from Absolutely Fabulous. But I’m told 40 is the new 30, and that I look youthful for my age. So there’s that. I feel totally 40, but I’m not having any emotional meltdowns about wrinkles or love handles or even the fact that I don’t have children (and at this point probably can’t and/or won’t.) I admit that there is much about having children that appeals to me, especially as a teacher. But I also feel utterly unfit, because children aren’t ready for children. It’s true…I’m a 40-year-old child.

I’ll give you a sense now of the kind of home to which my child would be subjected. Now granted, I no longer live with parents, even though 29% of adults under 35 lived with their folks in 2014 according to CNN.com. I did live briefly with my mother after receiving my MA at 27, but left an adjunct position and ran screaming away after about 15 months. (Still a sore place in my memories of Mom.) Do they even measure percentage of losers who live with parents after 35? And given my financial situation, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. My husband and I are really only one one major disaster away from knocking on the door of somebody in the family, and that’s not very adult.

At 40, I certainly think my household income should be about twice what it is. The dump of an apartment in which we live is more like something you lived in as a student, or in which someone who receives Section Eight funding might hole up. Not many married couples live in our complex, because two incomes should, at the very least, amount to a duplex. Not a tiny, generic-looking cupboard that smells of mold and weeps tobacco juice from the bathroom walls. They don’t sleep on a full which is covered in the same bedspread as the wife received as a Christmas gift in college. A real adult wouldn’t accept such conditions.

So grown up!

yellow and orange

I plant flowers in pots to break up the general hideousness, and that’s very adult. I’ll give myself that. Women of 40 plant pots, and mine tend to look pretty decent. And I am married after all, which is pretty grown up, and thank God, because unmarried women over 40 are generally considered to be some diseased subset of freaks for whom something went dreadfully wrong. This NYT article was the least depressing I found regarding this group, which may actually include some fulfilled, happy adult women who aren’t married on purpose, though you wouldn’t know from what’s out there. The fact is I found myself another adult child who was cute and made me laugh, and I married him in a not-very-grown-up ceremony in our nation’s Disney World for grown-ups.

But then look to the right.

My darling husband, overly fond of video games and board games and sports, is not less mature than his spouse, who loves formulaic horror movies like this recent gem, and trashy TV shows such as this over-dramatic violence and sex fest of a prequel to Hitchcock’s Psycho. We both wear almost nothing but T-shirts that feature characters from sci-fi classics or anime. He has a beard, and I still tell my stylist to cut my hair like some kind of alternative rock star. I do read a lot – actual books, too. So one might give me that as an adult trait. But if you ask other 40-year-old women, I bet they’re into candle-making and scrapbooking and knitting and jewelry-making and things which actually have a utilitarian purpose – like an adult would be.

Adults spend their time and their money productively. My last purchase? I don’t remember, because it’s been a while since I had money for anything other than a bill. I think it was a purse, and not an age-appropriate one. My husband bought an extension for the game of Dominion. On our wish list? A bigger bed?  A shelf for our beverages? A new couch? While these are all things we need and want, I’m more interested in a (third!) tattoo. My husband? A PS4. If we spend less money on beer and whiskey and other intoxicants, we might be able to afford it, but probably not. 

Okay, yes, I try to do adult activities. I run in the mornings. But I also take a nap almost every day I do it. I’m a vegetarian and try to eat healthy. But I ate Kraft mac-n-cheese only last night. Might as well shoot heroin. The truth is, I prefer any dinner that takes two or fewer steps of preparation. We don’t do dinner parties around here either. We hosted Thanksgiving once when we lived in a larger place. But the chances of that happening again amount to those of my having a baby.

I like kids. I really do, and while the thought of having something squirming inside of me for nine months before I squeeze it from a tiny orifice makes me very nervous, I think I could handle it. But I have RA, and I have trouble holding onto a pop can, much less a live infant. Plus, complications and genetic problems increase hugely when a mother gives birth over 40. Most importantly though, I have to admit that I have nowhere near the emotional immaturity it should take to raise another human being from infanthood. I have a level of focus bordering on adult ADD (not enough to warrant Adderall darn it.). I am as socially awkward as a 14-year-old and I have the mouth of a sailor. (Do sailors still talk like that? I know it’s an old saying. What would be the equivalent? A biker? A skateboarder? See what I mean about focus? It's no wonder I don't fit in with academic circles well.)

It’s unlikely I’ll even proofread this blog post before I put it out for all the public to see. What kind of responsibility can be expected of me as a mother? I don’t want to take care of someone else. I barely take good care of my dog. His toenails need a serious clipping as I type this. I ignore my own husband on a shamefully frequent basis…what kind of emotional neglect might I inflict on a child? And what about my husband? I like my marriage, and I really don’t want to lose it. Our dog gets between us enough. We barely get to spend time together, in my view, as it is. The ugly truth is kids aren’t necessarily good for marriages. Frankly, I want my husband for myself. I don’t want to share him with some other tiny person. Selfish much? Yes. Childishly selfish.

Vegas style. I was 36.

Let’s face it. The teaching schedule means you have a child’s calendar. Now, an adjunct in my position, at my age, should and normally would take a summer job. But not me, oh no. I put money aside for the summer. Money that should be spent on curtains that didn’t come from my dorm room in college. On clothes without rips in them. Throw pillows that don’t smell like terrier pee. Because I am a “WRITER,” and I want to spend the summer writing. I call it my sabbatical. A normal 40-year-old woman would call it summer vacation, and would have let go of that airy-fairy fantasy about ten years back. When I tell people I’m a “writer,” I’m fully aware that if I were as young as 20 they would laugh. Now it just makes them too sad. They probably feel older just hearing it.

One thing about me is mature, and that is my attitude about death. That, of course, is why aging is so scary for most people, right? But I feel pretty confident that what’s in store for me is going to be just fine. Maybe, if I straighten out my act, I’ll be in this Zen-like state of nonexistence…a part of God residing in the essence of pure goodness. No gold-paved roads or constant birthday cake bliss. I don’t buy that vision of “Heaven.” I think it’s moronic, as is the concept of eternal suffering in Hell, which is obviously a sadistic scare tactic used by organized religion. Just be with God and nothing. Or if not, I’ll just rot in the dirt. Or be burned and scattered in a lake. Or flushed down the toilet – who cares? I’ll be dead and I won’t know the difference. And in a few years, no one anywhere will know that I even existed. Which takes a lot of pressure off of me.

Oh Lord. My attitude about death is childish too, isn’t it? Whatever. I did thank-you cards today.

Later suckas!