Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Adulting

There comes a time in your life when you must admit to yourself that you're now the adult.  There's no one to go ask for help, advice, or simply for understanding.  You're it.  

And it sucks.

Mostly.

The area where I see this most in my life is when something physically falls apart. My dad is a car fanatic....but he's not there when I have car issues.  I have to deal with them myself.  The refrigerator breaks and it's up to me and Mr. Higgins to fix it.  (Thankfully, Mr. Higgins is incredibly handy when he puts his mind and time to it and we (I was handy myself) fixed a potentially devastating refrigerator problem recently.  Woot!)

But perhaps the most alarming truth about adulting is that you inevitably become the adult in the relationship you have with your parents.  As they age, they become increasingly dependent upon you to fix things in their house, to update their technology, to teach them technology, to help them in medical crises.  The roles reverse - and sometimes this happens quite suddenly.

It's not the best position to be in.  It's definitely not fun and is usually accompanied by extreme sadness.  We watch our parents deteriorate.   No longer can they fix our problems; we are asked to fix theirs.  It is, after all, a very natural process.  But like a lot of things in nature, it's not pretty.  

This is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives.  Since we're not having kids, our best years may now be behind us.  Mr. Higgins seems partly convinced of this but I still have hope that this is not the case.  

Actually, I desperately hope that it's not.  

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