Since being back from my English/New Yorkian adventures, I've not only graduated, but I've moved back in with my parents. Basically it was one of those things I always vowed I'd never do again, but then ended up having to because I was so broke after all my great undertakings this past summer.
It hasn't been too bad.
Her response seems so strange to me, but to a thirteen-year-old, apparently, it's normal.
Another thing that is hard for me to get used to is knowing what is available to eat in the fridge. I don't know what's there, because I don't do the shopping. So I don't know what I can eat. I instead find myself always waiting around for meals made by Mom when I'm hungry.
Look. I know that it sounds trivial, but it is something that I've had to get used to and it reminds me of how nice it is not to have to worry about things like that.
The most difficult thing of all is not quite as petty.
Ever since I was born I've been taking up a certain little spot in my family. The second-child/oldest-daughter spot that I wore proudly up until that great age of 18, when I moved out of the house to become a freshman at a university.
Over the next five years, I'd learned some things. My eyes were opened. My mind was illuminated. And I'd changed a great deal. I'd overcome habits I didn't care for, picked up a few I'd admired in roommates or friends and began to see the possibilities my life had to offer that were beyond my comprehension while I was living with my family.
My family isn't bad. I had just learned how to be an adult. You know, the type of person that just does everything for herself. I had put aside that second-child/oldest-daughter business and began picking up the business of becoming a woman, returning to it only on special weekends when I had gone home for Sunday dinner and to do laundry.
Right at the climax of my woman becoming, I graduated. And became broke at the same time.
It wasn't what I expected. I was planning on living my dreams. Becoming rich and buying a cool smart phone and a car. Dazzling people with my abilities to make creative and exciting new things. Breaking the hearts of all the single men around me because I was just that amazing.
I had a degree! People with degrees do cool things!
Sometimes it doesn't turn out like that.
Sometimes I have to borrow my parents' old and ugly car and use my dad's ancient flip-phone. Sometimes the most creative thing I get to do is edit home videos of my family at the fair. And sometimes there aren't any single men around to even talk to.
So I moved back home and started to put my dreams on hold for a while so I could look for a job.
And in moving back home, I picked back up that old role I'd always played. The second-child/oldest-daughter one that makes me feel like the adult woman that I long to be must be put on the back burner for a while.
And with that role, I seem to slip back into the same slot that I satisfied when I was 18. Old habits come back. New ones disappear. And the possibility of becoming something amazing seems to fade out of reality and into dreams only accessible when I close my eyes.
No longer the adult, I've once again become the child. Needing and looking for approval from my parents. Fighting and arguing with my siblings. Worst of all, wondering where that extraordinary and confident and fun and care-free adult woman I thought I was had gone to.
I've worked so hard to become her. And now she seems to be gone.
After thinking about all of this, I've decided to move in with my older and married brother. The change will be nice. The air will be fresh. And my mind will be free to unlock the hopes I hate to lose.
Good-bye second-child/oldest-daughter. Hello woman.
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