Ice Cream Alley

I've been spending an abnormal amount of time thinking about adulthood. Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Most likely it's because my 26th birthday is around the corner.

Take today for example. I wanted a Diet Coke and a black and white cookie for breakfast. Instead, I had some fiber-enhanced, reduced-fat granola bar. (And a Diet Coke, because I am not made of stone. Though I am made of caffeine, and need to keep my levels up.) And as I was sitting at my desk checking email and eating my over-processed, neatly packaged breakfast, I remembered that when I grew up I was going to have ice cream at every meal. I'd have ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My entire life, when I was an adult, would be perfect because it would be all about ice cream (manicures and R-rated movies, too).

This is pretty standard for kids, right? The "just-you-wait-until-I-am-grown-up-and-can-do-anything-I-want" attitude. Being an adult is going to rule! And for the most part, being an adult pretty much does rule.

It turns out having ice cream every day all day for the rest of my life is much more complicated than I anticipated, however. It seemed that once I moved out and started paying my own bills, I would step right inside the free-for-all arena that is adulthood where everything goes around and then comes back around again.

What a shock to learn that there are restrictions, and they're not all external. It's not just the rules of adult society -- the ones that say you have to get up and go to work every morning and stand in line at the post office and drive at a reasonable speed. It seems the majority of the restrictions are internal. Mostly what keeps me out of ice cream alley is the way that being an adult means you... act like an adult. You take responsibility for your health and your well-being. You iron your clothes and buy antibacterial soap. I know that endless ice cream is no way to live; staying up all night is totally awesome except for when you have to go to work the next day; and folding the laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer is always the better decision.

This isn't the way adulthood should be run. I saw grown-ups doing the boring adult things, and I thought they were doing it wrong. They weren't taking advantage of their advantages. And then you grow up, and it is, unexpectedly, the best thing in the world, when you are responsible and make the right decisions. When you take care of yourself, when you exercise and floss and recycle and donate to NPR.

So, annnnnnnyyways. I was planning to say something about being ready for my birthday, but every way I phrased it seemed silly (kind of like this entire post). But, I've already written it and don't plan to look back. I'll conclude the rambling with my four goals for 26... 1. become more like Mom and Dad (like telling others what I plan to eat -- see breakfast story above. I tease, I tease :)), 2. figure out what I want to be when I grow up, 3. try a little harder, 4. and eat alot more ice cream.