When I was a kid, I had dreams and expectations of how my adult life would end up. Like most kids, I’m sure there were many fantasies dreamt up, and the main one that I remember was that I was going to marry a rich horse rancher. My mom used to laughingly remind me that those two don’t go together as horses eat up a lot of money, but still...a girl could dream!
I smile as I look back at all the childish fantasies that I had made up in my mind that would someday be my adult life. I always thought adults were exaggerating when they complained about the difficulties of growing up, but they were right.
As a young girl, I could not wait to grow up, and I would fantasize about living this perfect, flawless life. However, I was unaware of the realities of being an adult.
Expectation: “When I grow up, I’ll stay up all night!”
Reality: When I was working full time, it was all I could do not to just come home and fall over my bed. But I am a woman; so, there is that whole cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, feeding the dogs thing that has to happen first…
Expectation: “I am going to eat whatever food I want because my mom can’t force me to eat meatloaf and broccoli anymore!”
Reality: I can’t afford to eat whatever I want which is crab legs and lobster tail... like daily. Therefore, my diet primarily consists of Ramen, spaghetti with cut up hot dogs, Hamburger Helper and chicken drumsticks.”
Expectation: “No one will be able to tell me what to do!”
Reality: Everyone still tells me what to do. Bosses—society—my husband…tries.
Expectation: “When I’m an adult, I’ll see my friends EVERY day!”
Reality: Okay, this is more of a two-part reality. First, in my twenties when I was all single and stuff, I spent a lot of time with “friends”. Usually at clubs or bars, and when there is alcohol involved, everyone is my “friend”. What can I say, I’m a happy drinker. However, fast forward to the thirties. I’m not sure if customer service has killed it for me or if I am just no longer in the mood to entertain drama and high school BS, but I’m finding more and more that it’s difficult for me to be friends with females. I literally have a couple of good friends and it still takes precision military planning and schedule hustling to see them.
Expectation: “When I grow up, I’m going to snuggle with my husband all morning long like they do on romantic movies!”
Reality: Clearly my younger self didn’t realize I would marry someone who was wired to get up at 4:30 every morning including weekends. Yeah, no. We are going on three years married…. Still have not slept in/snuggled on any given morning.
Expectation: “I’m going to have 4 kids by the time I’m 30!”
Reality: I have 2 fur babies that currently are making me go clinically insane because I can’t keep them apart (Harper is in heat and Toby has lost his damn mind because of it). I never dreamed that I would be 30 and changing dog diapers and not baby diapers. WTF.
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