Proper grown-ups
on being old, and also infantile
I mentioned in passing recently that some things make me feel not at all adult, even though I am practically crone-like and wizened with age. I like to think I am reasonably emotionally mature and resilient, and to me that explains why I am also quite childish. My theory is: serious child, childish adult. And then the more serious things you deal with in adult life, the more childish a part of you becomes to compensate, and it’s fine, it’s healthy - it’s a sort of necessary balancing out.
Or so I told myself while laughing at a whoopee cushion a few weeks ago. It was in my Christmas stocking and I activated it (what a ridiculous thing a whoopee cushion is - I hadn’t seen one for years, possibly decades), and dutifully put it under the seat of an armchair, fully expecting a family member to sit on it. We’d all go haha, yes, very funny, roll our eyes and move on. But it didn’t go off in the following days, and then I completely forgot about it.
Recently someone very very un-whoopee cushionish sat on it and detonated it - slowly, richly, loudly and at some length - and I thought I would DIE of laughter. It was that terrible uncontrollable laughter when you know you’re not supposed to laugh and therefore practically want to pee on the floor, so hilarious is it. Every time the conversation moved on I remembered the fart noise, looked at their completely unamused face, and started howling with mirth again. It wasn’t good, though in another sense it was just marvellous. Retrospectively, at least.
That’s an extreme example, and I don’t normally even find farce funny, but there are many other things I’m un-adult about. Certain sorts of houses are one - in the post, I wrote about a friend describing someone’s house as ‘very grown-up’ and immediately knowing exactly what she meant.
Speaking of that, I feel least adult in the houses of a certain type of glossy woman who doesn’t work. She always says she works, and in fact that she works like an absolute donkey, God, she’s exhausted actually, she never stops, but it’s never a job you or I would recognise as work (and I say that as someone whose work involves sitting on her bottom typing, so the bar is not high). Related: the husband earns a ginormous amount doing something baffling in money or tech. I find that lifestyle particularly un-enviable, but I do feel about 10 if I go for dinner (caterers, hotel-like flowers, elaborate tablescapes, at least one trophy guest, who will not be perched atop a whoopee cushions, ALAS).
Anyway: this got me thinking about all the ways in which I feel not adult. Here are some of them, in no particular order. I was aiming for 10 and got to 52. I know you’ll have your own - please add them in the comments because I’m really looking forward to reading them. We could compile a sort of definitive master list.
Being magnetically drawn to things - clothes, bedding, lighting, makeup - that are clearly designed for teenagers.
Leaving clothes on the arms of the bedroom sofa until they make an enormous pile. Though a bedroom sofa is quite adult, I feel.
Snacking in bed (undoes the goodness of the sofa). I could basically live in bed. I don’t, obviously. But I could.
Not really understanding how money works, meaning not understanding some jobs people do at all.
Not being bothered to find out, because it’s boring.