I don’t know if you were anything like me when you were a younger you. But somehow as a very much younger Robin, I thought I was going to somehow “arrive” at being a grown-up. I would pop full-blown into adulthood rather like the Pillsbury Doughboy, puffed and full and knowing all about how to do everything. I would be “done.”
I so clearly remember looking out my bedroom window on a Saturday morning watching my forty-something parents playing tennis. I saw them as adults who knew what they were doing and their lives made sense. Everything about them seemed so organized, tied-up in a bow and ready to go with all their ducks in a row.
As I grew and reached and got educated, dated and mated, I kept waiting for “grown-up” land to appear. Then children arrived and to my horror and surprise, I did not automatically “know” how to be a parent. I looked like a mom, but inside there was this Robin that kept saying, “What the hell do I do with this situation?” Dirty diapers and school-day dramas pushed me to new plateaus of questioning and angst. I’d survive this and that and another “Oh dear,” still thinking I was going to get there — “grown-up” land.
I had started businesses and built a career or two, but that not-quite-sure-what-to-do me still raised her hand. With a quirked eyebrow and an “Oh my!” I would realize that I hadn’t, as yet, got a firm grasp on this “adult” dealy-doo. Surely it must be just ahead?
I thought perhaps I would find the “perfectly baked” Robin with a bit more education. So, I enrolled in nursing school and got a graduate degree. Knowledge and skills, challenges and successes gave me more letters after my name, but a “Chutes and Ladders” up-and-down ride was still the name of the game. I kept bumping into things that would flummox and fascinate me.
Divorce drove me to avenues aching and anxious. Certainly, this had not been part of an “adult” game plan. This twist and turn of heart and mind was another tug on the I’m-still-not-a-together me. When would I finally arrive and know the answers, be able to see clearly the road ahead and have my destination firmly mapped?
As I struggled through those going-it-alone years, I finally realized I was never going to “grow up!” Nor did I want to, because if I did arrive at “grown-up” land, all my adventures would be done. The “Hey this is different’s” and “I’ve never been here before’s” would be over. The reach and stretch of coming at life full-tilt would no longer be happening.
So, as I sit here now more than a few years out from those old wishing-I-was-done days, I fully understand and delight in the fact that my life will always be an adventure.
I will never completely “grow up.” And isn’t that just plain wonderful?
Tags: beign a grown up, divorce, how to parent, I don't want to grow up, I'll never grow up, Life is ALWAYS an adventure, Pillsbury Doughboy, robin korth, when I grow up
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 9:56 am and is filed under IOA Stories, Newsletter, Robin's Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
