Ready... or Not

Not long ago, one of my Facebook friends celebrated her 21^st birthday – believe it or not, not all of my friends remember black & white TV and rotary phones. Of course, I had to remark on this milestone from the lofty perspective of my double-21-plus, so my response was: “You’re an adult now… go pay some bills or something.”

Ah, if only it were that simple.

The adult part, not the paying bills part – that never gets any simpler. The fact is, I’ve found myself continuing to struggle with all that’s involved with the word “grownup”. And there’s no question that it’s getting pretty late in the day for that; there aren’t too many places I go any more where I’m the youngest person in the room! It’s probably more common for me to be the oldest.

My daughter is in 2^nd grade and she’s told me several times that she’s worried about multiplication, i.e. 3^rd grade. I always tell her: don’t worry; when it gets here, you’ll be ready. I figured that growing up was the same way -- I just assumed that when you got to be an adult, with adult responsibilities, you’d feel somehow ready for it. When I was a kid, the adults around me (and I actually spent a lot of time, with many different adults in my life) seemed so grounded and serious and, you know, grown-up. They went to work every day because that’s what adults do – dressed in very serious grown-up clothes — and they made decisions without seeming to wrestle much with it, and just generally appeared to me to be in charge… masters of their domain, if you will. And really, really old, too, of course, but that’s just the default kid perspective.

I get this thrown in my face frequently, in a lot of different ways. Parenting is the daily one; being a parent is a constant series of “Is this allowable? Is that a good idea? Is the other necessary?” kind of decisions, and of course unrelenting responsibility… you need to come up with the Right Answer, quickly, and in a way that at least leaves the illusion that you’re in control!

Over the last 6 months or so, I’ve had several trips for work: flights, rental cars, hotels, business meetings. It seems like especially in the airport, I’m conscious that I want to look like a smooth, confident, well-traveled businessman… but inside I’m pretty sure that I’m going to trip over my shoelaces or have my briefcase fly open or something.

I still have a little video playing in my mind of the time I was rushing to the gate because boarding had already started, slipping into my place in the moving line just in the nick – only to realize that my flight was boarding at the gate across the way. Got almost to the agent taking boarding passes before I figured that one out, and as a result just barely made my (correct) flight!

And I’ve mentioned before that our camp is something of an ongoing project; recently we’ve concluded that there are some things we need to do that we can’t really do ourselves. So we need to hire someone to do the work… and I realized: I have no idea how to do that. Doesn’t it seem like a grown-up would know how to find someone and how to evaluate whether they’re fit for the job?

For that matter, a mature adult would probably know better than to write 600 words about how he doesn’t feel very competent.

I suppose this probably sounds like the typical mid-life crisis – a guy gets halfway (oh, all right, a little more than halfway) through his life, assesses the cards he’s been dealt, and asks for a new deal. But I want to make clear that’s not really what I’m talking about. I like my cards; I like being a husband and a dad and having a good job and owning cars and the like. If this is the hand I’m dealt, it would be hard to imagine a much better one.

I just can’t shake the feeling that everyone knows how to play their hands but me…