TL;DR: Me 5 years ago: That horrifying moment when you're looking for an adult, but then you realize you ARE the adult. So you go looking for an older adult. An adultier adult. Someone better at adulting than you. Me now: Look at me adulting all over the place!
Ok so I stole those quotes from some Google images, but I'm stealing from the anonymity that is internet memes for non-profit purposes. Try and sue me...you'll get nothing, because I'm in debt. Hah.
I'm 33, and I can honestly say I think I've only met the qualifications of such a human in the past several months. I've seen these grown-ups on TV in the past and I envied them. They lived on their own, had families, houses, minivans, and seemed to have this distinct sense of ownership over their lives that I severely lacked.
Ok so I stole those quotes from some Google images, but I'm stealing from the anonymity that is internet memes for non-profit purposes. Try and sue me...you'll get nothing, because I'm in debt. Hah.
I'm 33, and I can honestly say I think I've only met the qualifications of such a human in the past several months. I've seen these grown-ups on TV in the past and I envied them. They lived on their own, had families, houses, minivans, and seemed to have this distinct sense of ownership over their lives that I severely lacked.
I still don't own a house or a minivan, but for the first time ever I feel like I'm the CEO and majority stock holder over my life.
Let's go into left field a little bit and say that people who come from abusive situations often struggle with that sense of ownership. If there's manipulative people in your life, you're more of a passenger in your life rather than a driver, and it sucks...eventually you stop paying attention to where the driver is taking you. I've had several of those types in my life ever since I could remember. I won't go into detail but as a result, making my own decisions was something I was never good at, and even avoided because I knew my decisions would be overridden anyway.
But now, I've started making my own decisions. I don't call my mom for help every 10 minutes when cooking dinner, I don't get frozen with indecision over every little detail of my life, and that to me is a major improvement compared to a year ago when I was temporarily living with BOTH of my parents (who are by the way, divorced and one is remarried....awwwkwarrrrd), but I felt like a shadow. It was terrible. Let's just say I couldn't even decide how much toilet paper I needed when I took a visit to the bathroom. I was limited to 5 squares. Yeah, let's not get into the details on the horrors of that.
Now that I'm out of that situation and it's just me, the hubby and the baby, for the first time in ...well, forever, it feels like our tiny apartment might as well be a mansion. I can go to the kitchen in my underwear. I can eat food in bed. I can work in my pajamas. I can decide to go to the grocery store at 2am if I want to, because I don't have an overlord shoving me out the door with a shopping list on their schedule. I'm still discovering the full extent of that sense of freedom and I'm really liking it. Sure, there's always a compromise on choices when you're married, but in a sense, compromise or not, it's still my choice whether I do or don't do a thing.
This past weekend my mother visited and I almost slipped back into my passive "let's do all the things YOU wanna do" mentality while she was here. It was supposed to be 3 days, but ended up being a full week because we've had gigantic issues with the brakes on our car, so her trip home was postponed.
I spent hours watching her watch Law and Order...the same episodes I've seen 100 times because of her. And I wondered how I survived my 20's and a chunk of my 30's living that routine while retaining my sanity. I'm not even sure I did retain my sanity, but I do know that I was thankful that wasn't my full-time life anymore, and I got to test the measure of my newly found independence by telling my mother "no" on several occasions and laying down ground rules. I hate to admit it but having that power felt good! I wouldn't ever want to abuse it, but it was definitely empowering to know she was no longer the dominating matriarch and that it was MY home.
After a week though, I was ready to go back to my routine which involves quite a bit more mental stimulus than numbly staring at cable reruns for a huge chunk of my day. I love my mother and yes, I even miss her in some ways, but I missed my undisturbed turf even more. Sometimes I feel like a bad person for not letting my mother live with us, but that never wins out over my (very strong) desire to finally live my own life, which I feel is a basic human right; one that I was deprived of for a large portion of my adult life. Even something as basic as not being corrected on my methods of cooking dinner every night can build up until you just give up and start letting the control freak in your life take over, and I'll be damned if I'll let that happen again.
I may not always make the wisest or most efficient choices, but at least they're my choices and at my age, I should be mentally well equipped by now to deal with the consequences of my choices. To some this may seem like a silly rant of the obvious, but when you live a life under someone that tries to put more than their two cents in on your every tiny move and decision, simple choices such as playing video games all day and putting off the chores for a day or two isn't something you can just do. Not being guilt tripped to the point of being afraid to make decisions without clearing it with the "overlord" is something I don't think I'll ever take for granted again. But, I still do struggle with deciding where to eat out for dinner or what movie to watch. I don't think that will ever go away, hah.
But now, I've started making my own decisions. I don't call my mom for help every 10 minutes when cooking dinner, I don't get frozen with indecision over every little detail of my life, and that to me is a major improvement compared to a year ago when I was temporarily living with BOTH of my parents (who are by the way, divorced and one is remarried....awwwkwarrrrd), but I felt like a shadow. It was terrible. Let's just say I couldn't even decide how much toilet paper I needed when I took a visit to the bathroom. I was limited to 5 squares. Yeah, let's not get into the details on the horrors of that.
Now that I'm out of that situation and it's just me, the hubby and the baby, for the first time in ...well, forever, it feels like our tiny apartment might as well be a mansion. I can go to the kitchen in my underwear. I can eat food in bed. I can work in my pajamas. I can decide to go to the grocery store at 2am if I want to, because I don't have an overlord shoving me out the door with a shopping list on their schedule. I'm still discovering the full extent of that sense of freedom and I'm really liking it. Sure, there's always a compromise on choices when you're married, but in a sense, compromise or not, it's still my choice whether I do or don't do a thing.
This past weekend my mother visited and I almost slipped back into my passive "let's do all the things YOU wanna do" mentality while she was here. It was supposed to be 3 days, but ended up being a full week because we've had gigantic issues with the brakes on our car, so her trip home was postponed.
I spent hours watching her watch Law and Order...the same episodes I've seen 100 times because of her. And I wondered how I survived my 20's and a chunk of my 30's living that routine while retaining my sanity. I'm not even sure I did retain my sanity, but I do know that I was thankful that wasn't my full-time life anymore, and I got to test the measure of my newly found independence by telling my mother "no" on several occasions and laying down ground rules. I hate to admit it but having that power felt good! I wouldn't ever want to abuse it, but it was definitely empowering to know she was no longer the dominating matriarch and that it was MY home.
After a week though, I was ready to go back to my routine which involves quite a bit more mental stimulus than numbly staring at cable reruns for a huge chunk of my day. I love my mother and yes, I even miss her in some ways, but I missed my undisturbed turf even more. Sometimes I feel like a bad person for not letting my mother live with us, but that never wins out over my (very strong) desire to finally live my own life, which I feel is a basic human right; one that I was deprived of for a large portion of my adult life. Even something as basic as not being corrected on my methods of cooking dinner every night can build up until you just give up and start letting the control freak in your life take over, and I'll be damned if I'll let that happen again.
I may not always make the wisest or most efficient choices, but at least they're my choices and at my age, I should be mentally well equipped by now to deal with the consequences of my choices. To some this may seem like a silly rant of the obvious, but when you live a life under someone that tries to put more than their two cents in on your every tiny move and decision, simple choices such as playing video games all day and putting off the chores for a day or two isn't something you can just do. Not being guilt tripped to the point of being afraid to make decisions without clearing it with the "overlord" is something I don't think I'll ever take for granted again. But, I still do struggle with deciding where to eat out for dinner or what movie to watch. I don't think that will ever go away, hah.
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