I'm a grown up
On my ex's birthday, 2 years ago, she received a package from her mother. Of course she was exited, I've never in my life met a person so attached and in awe of her mother. She opens it. It's a set of wood salad bowls- very nice, and most likely expensive. What's that store called with the nice kitchen stuff? It escapes me. Anyway, she almost died of shock. Her momma, who is supposed to know her so well, must have made a mistake. It must have been a gag gift. What would she do with something so nice? Why would she need that? Didn't her mother know that she does not have a permanent residence and that all she's really doing is bidding her time in LA, continuing her college years activities, and just in transition before going back to irresponsibility?
The note from her mother reads that she just wants her daughter to start having nice things. The salad bowls are only the beginning. Her mother wants her to start collecting nice household items for when she settles down in a home, like most young working professionals want to eventually do. Not her. She was infuriated. That was the day she changed. She became a different person. She resisted growing up. All she talked about what that she was NOT a grown up and how dare her peers and family members expect her to be. This was not what she wanted. She had no goals beyond school. She was just a child, at 23, and wanted to be a child forever. She hated bills, she hated her checkbook- which, by the way, she refused to balance. But she loved those inheritance checks. While her poor mother lived check to check, this girl had 10s of thousands coming her way. What I want to know is, why didn't she ever pay for dinner? Hmm.. That's another story.
The point of this reflection/memory/breaking point and time at which my relationship with this girl ended- is that I do want to be grown up. My intentions while paying my way through school and getting a good job, then a better one, were to become someone. A person that sustains herself. A responsible adult that contributes to her community and relies on no one- not a significant other, not an inheritance check, not parents. I have never relied on anyone before but my fingers were always crossed and my hopes were that all of my hard work in school and in my career would pay off and that I would be a functioning person in the world that I like to call REAL.
I like to look back and think that she and I broke up as the result of a gift of salad bowls. That was well over a year ago. I look at my life now and the things I am surrounded with, the challenges I face of every day real life- and I am happy. This would not make her happy, and therefore, she and I were not compatible anyway.
The note from her mother reads that she just wants her daughter to start having nice things. The salad bowls are only the beginning. Her mother wants her to start collecting nice household items for when she settles down in a home, like most young working professionals want to eventually do. Not her. She was infuriated. That was the day she changed. She became a different person. She resisted growing up. All she talked about what that she was NOT a grown up and how dare her peers and family members expect her to be. This was not what she wanted. She had no goals beyond school. She was just a child, at 23, and wanted to be a child forever. She hated bills, she hated her checkbook- which, by the way, she refused to balance. But she loved those inheritance checks. While her poor mother lived check to check, this girl had 10s of thousands coming her way. What I want to know is, why didn't she ever pay for dinner? Hmm.. That's another story.
The point of this reflection/memory/breaking point and time at which my relationship with this girl ended- is that I do want to be grown up. My intentions while paying my way through school and getting a good job, then a better one, were to become someone. A person that sustains herself. A responsible adult that contributes to her community and relies on no one- not a significant other, not an inheritance check, not parents. I have never relied on anyone before but my fingers were always crossed and my hopes were that all of my hard work in school and in my career would pay off and that I would be a functioning person in the world that I like to call REAL.
I like to look back and think that she and I broke up as the result of a gift of salad bowls. That was well over a year ago. I look at my life now and the things I am surrounded with, the challenges I face of every day real life- and I am happy. This would not make her happy, and therefore, she and I were not compatible anyway.