Growing up

With my 9th 21st birthday imminent and the escapades of the weekend still fresh in my memory, I’ve been thinking about growing up, getting older and bring responsible.

Last week, Blonde wrote about how she feels like a fraud – how, even now we’re 10 years out of school with degrees and jobs and houses and dependants (in her case, Colin the cat, in my case, my plants), it doesn’t feel like we should be here, being grown up.

I feel the same, constantly. And I also feel guilt. Guilt that I’m not doing this whole “being a grown up” thing very well.

This feeling is reinforced by the plethora of wedding invites, pictures of small children and smug couples who seem to invade my every day life. And it’s not all envy – I promise. All of these people deserve all of their happiness and I’m flattered that I’m asked to help them celebrate. And yes, I want it too. I’ve never been afraid to admit that.

And so the guilt is felt even more acutely because, despite knowing what I want, and despite knowing (sort of) how it’s achieved, despite all this, even now, I have no stop button.

When I was 18, 19, 20, this was fine. I was allowed to be all go-go-go. I was at University, I was young, and it was kind of expected. And I relished it. I went out until all hours, I drank vile cocktails, I flirted (a lot), I had strings of boyfriends, near-friends, friends with benefits and a variety of others in between. And that suited me fine.

21 hit and I came to London. I settled in. I found my feet and then, at 22, I met N. This was my grown up stage. I was in a committed relationship, I paid my bills, I was in contracts, I went out (on occasion) but there it was, I was a grown up.

Four years later, and I’m on my own. A year after that, I move country and start all over again. And this, it seems, is where it’s gone a little awry.

I seem to have regressed back to my Uni stage. Except this time, I’m not 18 anymore. 10 years have passed and I’m finding this lack of willpower, this lack of stop button, is causing me more angst than I’d like.

Weekends have become a joyful blur of going out with friends, meeting random people, occasional liaisons and lazy Sundays. And it’s fun, and I enjoy it, but is this the way I want it to continue?

Do I want to become one of those women who are perpetually alone, bouncing from one fling to another? Do I want to be greeted by the man behind the bar at the local nightclub? Do I want to be that person who always asks “where to next?”

No, I want to be a grown up.

It amuses me somewhat that all my male friends seem to have this ingrained belief that my “Mr Right” is going to seemingly appear before me (blinding flash and puff of smoke optional)*. Sometimes I feel like I could be in Snow White with the amount of “someday your prince will come“s going on.

So what do I do? Do I curb my – ahem – natural enthusiasm and become a sensible being? Will this make me more grown up? Do I embrace what I seem to have become and deal with it? Will this make me more grown up? Shall I change completely and become a new person? Will this make me more grown up?

The answer, as ever, continues to hide from me. And so, for now, until the answer arrives, I will continue to complain, and feel guilt, and rant to myself on this blog, and annoy my friends about it.

Sorry.

*It has not escaped my notice that all my male friends have found their significant others and therefore are no longer the cynical beings that I once knew!