The Myth of Adulthood

Almost 1:00 and no more work to do. Which is good because I was out till 2:00 am last night having drinks with Blake, Ken and Mark at the Black Bear in SoNo. I was the DD which meant I only had a beer and therefore when I found myself lost in the middle of Norwalk I had no excuse. Blake recently got back from his third tour in Iraq, he's now Sgt. in the Marines, which sounds so very adult and got be thinking about this idea of growing up. The one thing that seems to necessitate "growing" up is the arrival of infants in your life, aside from this bouncing event the delineations are not so clear. Perhaps it is your first houese, the death of your parents or your first real job that ushers you into this club. I know that leaving my first real job seems to have offered me more in the way of growing up than all my time working. The uncertainty of what to do with life remains trhoughout one's time here but perhaps the options appear to be less plausible at a given point and with this narrowed persepective we get "Practical". What an awful word, it means that you do something you don't want to do because it makes more sense in the grander scheme of your life, but that doesn't change the fact that whatever that Practical choice may be it is in fact self denying. I don't think it hits all at once , adulthood that is, I think it is a series of small choices that lead to a different world view and value priority alignment than one had held previously in one's youth. But perhaps that is too harsh, it may be the reiteration of a worldview too, and in that confirmation of our own sense of being we find that we have been on the right track all along. God knows I wouldn't want to be 12 again nor 17 or even 21. That doesn't mean that those ages didn't hold things that I wish I possessed now, like no rent and more gall. I quote the Beatles "when I was younger so much younger than today, I never needed anybodies help in anyway but now those days are gone and I'm not so self assured" Here's to an ever evolving sense of adulthood in whatever form that it may take.