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When I was about 23 I half lived with E and half lived at home. I had my own apartment but when I found out it was an illegal apartment and the town was cracking down on those, I had to get out, so that was the arrangement. We never officially moved in together and E had a roommate, but that is where I spent most of my time, with E.
He lived about 30 minutes from where I worked and I would have to make a horrid commute every day on the NJ Parkway. The parkway has toll booths and a sketchy at best design of where to go if you have cash or tokens (no ez pass at the time) and it could be a miracle if you didn't get into an accident crossing 345 lanes to get to the appropriate one.
One particular day I was waiting in the famous NJ traffic at the toll booths. I stopped and looked around me, the men and women in cars around me, all seemed so old and so miserable. It was like an out of body experience, I could see myself in my car going to a job I didn't really like, just like all these people I didn't want to become.
I had become one of them. I had become and adult.
As a child you glorify being an adult, you can eat whatever you want!
You can stay up late, buy your own clothes, go anywhere at any time and you can drink delicious kahlua and milk drinks!
Then you become one and realize people need kahlua and milks because after paying bills you want to kill yourself. Sure you can stay up late but then the next day you hate your job more then usual.
I don't want my kids to wake up in traffic and realize they are doing the opposite of what they always wanted to do.
I don't want them to have to stop at the tolls, I want them to always drive on a long open road to everywhere.
7 years ago
Funny, I bet our parents had the same thoughts about us.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't despise my job (just some people in it) I"m still not doing what I want, what would make me happy...
I think I have to change that in order for my son to see it's actually possible to be happy.
Kristi,
ReplyDeleteI think about moving to the south a lot, a slower, nicer type of live but I am a Jersey girl through and through, I don't know how I would fit in.
While the responsiblities of adulthood are sometimes "dauting" I think that becoming a parent has made it all worth while. While I may not be a kid anymore and get to live care-free...I do get to watch my own child figure it out for himself...and one day if he (and me, too) is really lucky, he'll get to sit on this side of childhood and watch his children grow up too! That has got to be worth a few hours of toll sitting...
ReplyDeleteBut hey, I agree. It sounds like you need to move somewhere where traffic isn't such an issue!
That is so perfectly said!
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way because I never wanted that type of life and I certainly don't want my son to have it. To me nothing would be more wonderful if he could become an artist, actor, or anything he really loved doing.