For me it's the little things I do now that remind me that I have grown up like:
- having a "lady appointment" as soon as you get the reminder
- going to the dentist every year for a check up.
- putting your car in for a service every 10 000kms. ( mine generally needs some love quite regularly but sometimes I am good!)
ET - Drew Barrymore is now 36
Yesterday Chef was talking to the new work experience girl at his work and she new some friends of ours and said she was friends with there son she asked chef how long he had known them and he said "I use to feed him dates when he was in nappies" ( Chef worked in their cafe is Sydney) she gasped "but he is as old as me."
I don't think I feel any older than I did at say 27- but seeing those around me age makes me realise I am getting older. See Busy get bigger everyday makes me feel grown up. Seeing her want to be like me makes me realise I am teaching her how to be a woman and that scares me to death sometimes.
What makes you feel grown up?
When do you notice it?
Ok Spencer creeped me out a little bit! How did this happen. I have those moments at a drive thru or check out and you think holy crap this kis is so young I could be his mother!
ReplyDeleteSame SAME - I am starting to feel that the last year or so... seeing children I knew as 3 - 4 now at Uni.
ReplyDeleteNow making decisions about clothes choice...
Noticing the type of things I want to watch which I hated my parents watching as a child...
The type of people I see as attractive as a child I saw as older and unattractive... like baldness -I find it attractive now!!! BTW Michael is not bald...
Noticing I cannot do what I used to do as a teenager... with as great agility/strength or stamina!!!
Yup I feel the same Cath...
mmm, I still need to work on the regular dentist and car service thing... but I felt really grown up when I found out a girl I baby sat now has her own baby!
ReplyDeleteand there are the days when I feel that I'm "fitting" a little better in my own skin (and worrying less about "fitting in" everywhere else...) when I remember that growing up is pretty good...
The kids I babysat are now runnig businesses and having their 2nd and 3rd kids. Feeling my age!
ReplyDeleteI remember one of our younger employees thinking Blues Brothers 2000 was the original...no idea that it was a crappy sequel to an iconic mivie :P
I have always felt grown up since finishing study and earning a wage. Whenever I think that I don't have homework and don't have to wear a school uniform, don't have to study anymore unless I chose to, I feel like I am a fully fledged adult.
It's not so muich as feeling like a grown up for me these days. It's feeling growing old. The grey hairs, the failing body bits, the 25 year school reunions...
Sorry about all those typos. It is Friday avo after all :P
ReplyDeleteMy cousin once said: You become a grown up when you start paying for stuff you can't hold in your hand ... like gas and electricity! I always remember that.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel like a grown up when I realise I don't share my kids playful sense of fun. I'd rather sit and read/sew instead of playing hide and seek. Makes me wish I was a little less grown up at times.
xx
I quite often stop and think in amazement "god I have kids!I'm a mum!!"
ReplyDeleteI started feeling old when people in important positions eg doctors, dentists, policemen etc, start to look like they were fresh out of high school! I would think 'you can't be old enough to do this job'. In my head, I'm still in my 20s, but the mirror tells me otherwise.
ReplyDeleteYep, all that is ringing loud bells here with me (pity I can only just hear them!) :)) That's my no.1 at the moment actually - asking for the TV/radio whatever to be turned up because I can't hear them!! When did that happen?? Scary. My other one is meeting mid-20s people who were born after I'd finished school! How?? Or talking to them and mentioning Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan or Joh Bjelke-Petersen... and they have NO IDEA who I'm talking about! But the worst one for my vanity is trying on some cute thing in a shop, looking in the mirror and seeing mutton dressed up as lamb. I wish I could still wear fun clothes but they just look ridiculous on me now :( Hmm... I could probably go on longer but perhaps I shouldn't! Great post, though, Cath :) Kx
ReplyDeleteThe feeling of "So this is who I married and these are the kids I had and this is my so-called career" resonates with me. Some days you feel like that kid who used to fantasise about their future, looking through a time tunnel and seeing your grown-up self. I'm glad we couldn't actually do that when we were superficial kids because I'm sure 99% of us would be dismayed at the reality!
ReplyDeleteOh boy Cath, seeing myself in my six year old. Hearing my voice in hers, remembering having those same ideas, being that excited over 'What's the time Mr Wolf?' and realizing somehow I am now standing in my mums shoes… freaking me out big time! xx
ReplyDeleteI feel grown up when I see an old boyfriend around town thats gone to seed, then I wonder how seedy I'm looking!!
ReplyDeleteI got my first grey last week. Aging not so gracefully over here!!
What an interesting question I think it's that old thing of seeing kids I used to babysit finishing uni getting married etc is a big one. Suddenly that thing of " oh my I'm getting Old" Moving out of home was a big one too, and starting to pay for everything myself were steps along the way, i think for me it was gradual and than bam it hit me.
ReplyDeleteFunny though lots of people think i'm younger than i am, so I have to keep reinforcing to people that I am indeed grown up!
( but with a big kid inside)
I read this this morning and have been thinking about it ever since. I think right now I am feeling younger than I ever have. So many of my everyday worries and responsibilities have gone and I am living in the moment like a kid does.
ReplyDeleteOf course I have an almost eleven year old, I own a business/farm, lots of vehicles and a house, I finished school 22 years ago....maybe teensy bit old too.
mmmm when did I start feeling old - when I realised that I'd heard that song before (the first time it was in the charts and not the remixed version 20 plus years later) oh and this goes with fashion to - when my BF's daughter came out in an outfit which was the exact image of one her mother wore back in the 80's - and her telling us that we're not trendy!!!!
ReplyDeleteFabulous post Cath... just yesterday I said to my sister, 'For the first time in my life I feel my age'.
ReplyDeleteFor me it was having a baby, feeling responsible for a little life and realising I can't just drift along anymore... and seeing myself relate to her exactly how my mum relates to babies... scary stuff!
I feel a bit cheated, like somehow I got to this age without noticing and now there's no going back... time to start living vicariously through my daughter!
I'm not sure that I ever felt particularly young! I never really "got" going out and getting pissed and having a hang-over. At 18 I felt like offering a cradigan to all my scantily clad girlfriends! Having said that, I think I feel about 25 in my head - the start of my time in London, the freedom to travel, earn and learn.
ReplyDeleteI have recently been feeling much older than my actual age - looking in the mirror and seeing my mother instead of myself; hearing teenagers say "careful of that lady" if they're mucking around as I walk past; wondering who's letting 9 year olds learn to drive?
But I don't feel like I've let life pass me by. Although I sometimes think that perhaps I've trodden a bit too safely. Maybe I'll discover my wildside when I hit my 50s!!
Like the nevermind baby its music that makes feel grown up. When your no longer excited about the new biggest sound preferring instead a reunion gig of someone you listened to in your teens.
ReplyDeleteAnd Cath giving up the sugar is pobably a grown up thing, how's that going?
A couple of years ago I was walking along feeling fine when I spotted a gorgeous young man smiling coyly (cute, I thought)
ReplyDeleteYeah ...but he was checking out my daughter!!! hahahaha Sue
Before I left the big (sometimes bad) world of fulltime corporate employment with a media conglomerate one of the girls in our team said she was feeling miserable and I said my grandmother would have said she needs a Bex and a good lie down.
ReplyDeleteI then said "oh but you are probably too young to know what Bex is" (Heck I am on the cusp of knowing and she was at least 10 years younger than me).
She said of course she knew - Becks is a beer....
Hmmm
I still don't actually feel grown-up.
I thought being married with a mortgage would do it, nope, kids will do it, nope...
Still waiting..
I used to be a high school teacher ... I ran into a girl I taught when she was in Year 8 ... she had two kids and another on the way ... shitcakes!
ReplyDeleteI used to be a high school teacher ... I ran into a girl I taught when she was in Year 8 ... she had two kids and another on the way ... shitcakes!
ReplyDeleteI"m still waiting! But seriously, I always get a fright when I am referred to as a 'lady' in a shop, or 'madam'. Or worst of all Mrs Walker! That really freaks me out :)
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ReplyDelete(off for a restorative nana nap to recover and all)...
The thing that made me feel grown up was when I became financially independent. Now being a SAHM and therefore being financially dependent on my husband makes me sometimes question this, but seeing as we work as a team and don't go crying to our parents when something goes wrong, I figure that makes me a grown up. A good question to ponder though!
ReplyDeleteI bought my son and his mates Stereosonic tickets (for over 18's). sent off his accommodation application for Uni and heard his midyear exam marks. I'm 39 and I just can't believe that I am nearly the mum of an adult. It's really hitting home at the moment - so did seeing Spencer!
ReplyDeleteI think there is a big difference between feeling grown up and feeling old. I feel old when I look at sexy high heels and can only focus on how much they'd hurt and I feel old when I see the first babies I ever delivered are getting ready to leave primary school. I feel grown up when I pay my credit card off every month and when I keep my temper with my raging, pouting child. (and I feel a tiny bit distraught when I find yet another grey hair!)
ReplyDeleteI don't feel grown up... not at all! But I can see that I am when I look at how much my children are growing ... and at the rapid rate. Most of the time I don't mind. Being grown-up isn't too bad.
ReplyDelete