Summer Resolutions
A true sign you’re an adult is every night before you go to bed you have to take a few minutes and remove all the decorative pillows from your bed.
Or maybe its just another sign of all the fluff that starts to consume your life after awhile. I was staring in my closet and decided that I didn’t own any clothes that I really liked for ME. I didn’t own anything that I really enjoyed. I owned clothes that are acceptable to wear to work, that are bland, button-up, and completely acceptable for a mom to wear. I own clothes that more often then not make me look older then my twenty-years and can sometimes helps me avoid the “young mom” stereotypes. I see women in their thirties and forties that shop at the “young” stores and from a distance are difficult to separate from their teenage daughters. Its okay that they are like that though - its okay to be thirty and assume the persona of a twenty year old (to a point). They can do that because they have never been the scared nineteen year old in parenting class that the other couples refused to talk to. They have never had sales people ignore them in Babies-R-Us or been the outsider in swim class.
So last night I was shopping and I found this really great pair of brown high heels that I absolutely love. I first scoured the mall for a similar pair of black ones with no luck (after all to be completely practical I don’t really own anything I can wear with brown shoes and then again: it’s a pair of shoes I love why do I have to be so damn practical?)
Eventually I settled down and bought the brown shoes when I couldn’t find anything similar in black and then I went and bought a few things off the clearance rack to wear with the shoes. I came home with a suit and a brown office skirt. What the hell? Honestly, I will wear those more then any cute, little (okay it wouldn’t be so little), flirty ensemble I could dig out of the juniors department. I am sick of being so damn practical, of living my life to this assumed image.
I do have a lot of great things. For being twenty I have a great life - but the life comes with responsibilities and those responsibilities suck the youngness out of you payment by payment. I enjoy my house, my husband, my child, my car. I just want to enjoy things more. I want to remember what it was like not to have to pick up the toys every night and make the bed every morning.
Actually I want to un-dig or re-invent the new me that is a combination of new and old. I know I am slowly making my way there but the sooner I become comfortable with my new skin the better. I want to be the hybrid twenty-year old spirit with the thirty-year old responsibilities and the forty-year old maturity. I think I am more twenty-year old maturity, with thirty-year old responsibilities, and forty-year old spirit.
So in quest of my new self I made a resolution. Randon and I have been waking up every morning and working out at 6:00 AM Monday - Friday for a month now. By this summer I want to go and buy clothes that I enjoy. Jeans and mini-skirts and tank-tops that I love. I have the summer internship but the dress code is more relaxed. I want to wear things for me and not for an image. I am not going to be ashamed of being a young mother because this adorable, intelligent, happy little girl is a result of my hard work and dedication. I will not feel guilty about letting my daughter have a potato chip and I will stop reading the nutritional labels on all her baby food and worrying what other people think about my parenting skills.
I am going to stop treating my car like the practical, four-cylinder, family sedan and let it be the 200hp, six-speed, turbocharged beauty it is. I am going to use the exceptional sound system and blare the radio with the windows down and feel the summer sun on my skin. I am going to wash it every week in my backyard in a bathing suit and not worry about what the neighbors are thinking about my hips.
I am going to start studying for my GMAT more and focusing on the future and quit worrying about proving that I can handle this level. I already proved it. I have a great marriage, a great family, a house that is pulling itself together (decorative pillows and all), my bills are paid, I am building decent credit, on the honor-roll, gas in the car, food in the kitchen, and money in the bank account, and I haven’t had a major psychological breakdown. I am going to talk openly about having a second child more and quit worrying about what everyone else is thinking. It doesn’t matter if we are young - our first child is turning out exception - and if we can afford it without government assistance then whose business is it anyhow?
I am going to quit worrying about whether my hair cut is “mature” or not and focus on how I like it (not to mention I have to grow it in for the wedding this year). I WILL NOT feel guilty about that 4:00 AM cheeseburger because GODDAMMIT I WAKE MY ASS UP AT 5:30 AM FIVE DAYS A WEEK TO GO TO THE GYM. Besides my husband loves me how I am.
I am going to remember I am going to be twenty-one AND a mom and stop trying to make it all about one. Its okay to get a babysitter to go the bar and its okay to play rap music in the car. My daughter likes to dance, anyhow.
I will also stop feeling guilty about being allowed to live such a beautiful life. I am deserving, I work hard to maintain it, and whether it’s fair or not isn’t my concern. I need to stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.
And now, because I feel like a sloth I am going to give up one of my free days and go get ready to go the gym once my husband gets home.
Or maybe its just another sign of all the fluff that starts to consume your life after awhile. I was staring in my closet and decided that I didn’t own any clothes that I really liked for ME. I didn’t own anything that I really enjoyed. I owned clothes that are acceptable to wear to work, that are bland, button-up, and completely acceptable for a mom to wear. I own clothes that more often then not make me look older then my twenty-years and can sometimes helps me avoid the “young mom” stereotypes. I see women in their thirties and forties that shop at the “young” stores and from a distance are difficult to separate from their teenage daughters. Its okay that they are like that though - its okay to be thirty and assume the persona of a twenty year old (to a point). They can do that because they have never been the scared nineteen year old in parenting class that the other couples refused to talk to. They have never had sales people ignore them in Babies-R-Us or been the outsider in swim class.
So last night I was shopping and I found this really great pair of brown high heels that I absolutely love. I first scoured the mall for a similar pair of black ones with no luck (after all to be completely practical I don’t really own anything I can wear with brown shoes and then again: it’s a pair of shoes I love why do I have to be so damn practical?)
Eventually I settled down and bought the brown shoes when I couldn’t find anything similar in black and then I went and bought a few things off the clearance rack to wear with the shoes. I came home with a suit and a brown office skirt. What the hell? Honestly, I will wear those more then any cute, little (okay it wouldn’t be so little), flirty ensemble I could dig out of the juniors department. I am sick of being so damn practical, of living my life to this assumed image.
I do have a lot of great things. For being twenty I have a great life - but the life comes with responsibilities and those responsibilities suck the youngness out of you payment by payment. I enjoy my house, my husband, my child, my car. I just want to enjoy things more. I want to remember what it was like not to have to pick up the toys every night and make the bed every morning.
Actually I want to un-dig or re-invent the new me that is a combination of new and old. I know I am slowly making my way there but the sooner I become comfortable with my new skin the better. I want to be the hybrid twenty-year old spirit with the thirty-year old responsibilities and the forty-year old maturity. I think I am more twenty-year old maturity, with thirty-year old responsibilities, and forty-year old spirit.
So in quest of my new self I made a resolution. Randon and I have been waking up every morning and working out at 6:00 AM Monday - Friday for a month now. By this summer I want to go and buy clothes that I enjoy. Jeans and mini-skirts and tank-tops that I love. I have the summer internship but the dress code is more relaxed. I want to wear things for me and not for an image. I am not going to be ashamed of being a young mother because this adorable, intelligent, happy little girl is a result of my hard work and dedication. I will not feel guilty about letting my daughter have a potato chip and I will stop reading the nutritional labels on all her baby food and worrying what other people think about my parenting skills.
I am going to stop treating my car like the practical, four-cylinder, family sedan and let it be the 200hp, six-speed, turbocharged beauty it is. I am going to use the exceptional sound system and blare the radio with the windows down and feel the summer sun on my skin. I am going to wash it every week in my backyard in a bathing suit and not worry about what the neighbors are thinking about my hips.
I am going to start studying for my GMAT more and focusing on the future and quit worrying about proving that I can handle this level. I already proved it. I have a great marriage, a great family, a house that is pulling itself together (decorative pillows and all), my bills are paid, I am building decent credit, on the honor-roll, gas in the car, food in the kitchen, and money in the bank account, and I haven’t had a major psychological breakdown. I am going to talk openly about having a second child more and quit worrying about what everyone else is thinking. It doesn’t matter if we are young - our first child is turning out exception - and if we can afford it without government assistance then whose business is it anyhow?
I am going to quit worrying about whether my hair cut is “mature” or not and focus on how I like it (not to mention I have to grow it in for the wedding this year). I WILL NOT feel guilty about that 4:00 AM cheeseburger because GODDAMMIT I WAKE MY ASS UP AT 5:30 AM FIVE DAYS A WEEK TO GO TO THE GYM. Besides my husband loves me how I am.
I am going to remember I am going to be twenty-one AND a mom and stop trying to make it all about one. Its okay to get a babysitter to go the bar and its okay to play rap music in the car. My daughter likes to dance, anyhow.
I will also stop feeling guilty about being allowed to live such a beautiful life. I am deserving, I work hard to maintain it, and whether it’s fair or not isn’t my concern. I need to stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.
And now, because I feel like a sloth I am going to give up one of my free days and go get ready to go the gym once my husband gets home.