I have a secret.
Personally, I think that there are many people walking around with the same secret, but it doesn’t get shared all that often.
I don’t feel like a grown up.
Not really.
I mean, I DO in the sense that yes, I can do big girl things like pay bills, take care of children, buy a car and shop for my own food. (Which still weirdly tickles me with excitement sometimes. I can buy whatever the hell I want to eat with the money I have! Sweet! Well, unless Jonathan is shopping with me. In that case he takes things out of my cart he deems “bad for me” [ie-pretty much everything I like] and sticks it back on the shelf when I’m not looking.)
Even though I’m 34, there are so many times that I still feel like a kid: unsure, vulnerable, and scared.
Sometimes I look around and think that as adults we’re really just repeating scenarios that we started in the sand pile;only the scenery has changed and the toys we’re all fighting, competing for, and playing with have gotten bigger and more expensive.
I didn’t think being an adult would feel this way when I was a child. I thought grown ups had all the answers, knew everything and never got scared.
(Yeah. I know.)
I remember some really specific moments when adult behavior just baffled me when I saw it through the filter of a child’s mind.
The day my maternal grandma died was one of them.
My mom was the youngest of eight children and I am the youngest of six siblings. In fact, I was the second to last of like, eleventy-hundred grandchildren from Paul and Susie Wade. My grandmother was born in 1891. She was nine years older than my grandpa and she met him in a one room, dirt floor school house in the deep south when he was 16 and she was his teacher. She said she saw a handsome redhead coming up the dirt road and knew she was in love. Today, this would most likely cause a jail sentence and an entire outraged radio segment by Dr. Laura, but I can’t help but say, “GO, GRANDMA!!! WOOT!”
My grandfather LOOOOOVED her.
Both of them loved me.
Even though they had dozens and dozens of grandkids.
Even though most of the time I was alive my grandmother was very sick and wheelchair bound and couldn’t interact with me very much.
I knew she and grandpa loved me.
Better than that?
They LIKED me.
KIDS KNOW THESE THINGS.
Sometimes when I go to the store I buy Jergen’s lotion because it’s one of the few memories I have of her. It was her signature scent and I never smell it without feeling like I’m wrapped up in a blankie of being loved. I wish that I had better memories of my her, but I was only 8-years-old when she died.
It was Sunday morning.
The phone rang and my mom came into the room where my twin sister and brother and I were sitting in our pajamas and she started crying when she told us that the hospital called to say that Grandma had died in the night.
My first thought was, “This means I can stay home and watch cartoons instead of going to church!”
(YEAH. I KNOW.)
My second thought was that I was totally confused at why my mom was so sad. I mean, it wasn’t like if she was little when her mom died. THAT would have been SO sad. Like when Chris A’s mom died right before the last day of school of cancer. THAT was sad because he was little and kids aren’t supposed to have their mom’s die. My mom was OLD and her mom was even OLDER.
Aren’t old people supposed to die??
It wasn’t that I wasn’t sad, I was. I was just confused at how hard my mom was taking it because she was a GROWN UP and GROWN UPS aren’t supposed to get as sad and cry like us little kids…right? They are supposed to handle things like death like…well…GROWN UPS!
Now that I AM a grown up, I know what a total load of crap this is.
My uncle passed away this week.
I probably should have started with this information, but to be honest-it doesn’t deeply touch or hurt me and I didn’t want people to rush with condolances or to think that I’m falling apart in pain.
I’m not.
My uncle wasn’t a bad man, he was just very solitary and extremely difficult to know. He did not talk a lot and I remember him always being around, but in a very quiet way. Kind of like a lone tree in the background of a painting. He was also an inlaw that was married to my aunt, so I guess you could say SHE was “the primary” if that makes sense. Because I didn’t know him that well I don’t feel a personal sense of grief with his passing but I absolutely have loss.
Remember how I told you that my mother is the youngest of eight?
Well, I have always thought of the aunts and uncles as a collective. A singular unit. I always knew that no matter what kind of chaos my childhood was in, the aunts and uncles were solid and stable. They were constant.
I also always think of them in pairs: Neil and Leotha, Ewell (Gene) and Joy, Zola (Pauline) and Plaz, Eva Nell and Alden, Alfred (AB) and Donna, Rowan and Verdeena, Bob and (Katherine) LaRee. The only singular was Aunt Regina and that is only because her husband died before I was born.
I always thought that our family was incredibly lucky to have so little death in it.
Before I buried my son, I had only been to the funerals of two family members-my grandparents.
When I did lose Matthew? Every single one of my aunts and uncles were there for me. Matthew got to meet ALL of them before he died and that was something that gave me great comfort. Even though they have dozens of nieces and nephews and extended family coming out their ears they were ALL there for me and shared my grief and pain.
Especially my Aunt Leotha.
We’re not supposed to have favorites and I love ALL my aunts and uncles but my Aunt Leotha is one of my favorite people on the planet. She reminds me of my grandpa and I adore her. I want to name my son after her and will keep trying to talk Jonathan into letting me use “Lee” as a middle name (Lee is her nickname. I loved my grandparents but DUDE they had weird taste in names. You can tell from that little list I just spewed out at you.)
And now Leotha is in really bad health, without her husband of decades and I hurt for her and my cousins.
I always knew that when my aunts and uncles did finally start to pass away it would come fast. We lost the first two last year within 2 weeks of each other and it was horrible. My mom is the baby of 8 and she’s 71, so it really is amazing that all of them have been around as long as we’ve been blessed with them.
I’ve found I don’t feel old enough for them to go, though.
I’m not ready.
I don’t know that I’ll ever feel old enough or ready enough.
Even with an uncle-in-law that I was not terribly close to it effects me.
This death comes at a time where there is very little in my life that feels secure and sure and safe and this? Is a really big…CHANGE.
Neil is supposed to be with Leotha.
He just IS.
The fact that he’s not is throwing me off kilter.
There is security in the familiar. You take for granted that what is will always be. When that changes it can be unsettling and make the most grown up of people feel like an 8-year-old who lays in bed not wanting to get up to get a drink of water because it’s dark and the dark is scary.
Right now, in my head, the aunts and uncles are still the grown ups and I am the little kid with scabs on my knees and tangles in my hair.
I don’t want to lose anyone else.
I don’t want anything else to change.
I’m not a kid anymore.
I know everything changes.
It has to.
Kids may not know about that fact of life, but grown ups DO.
That is the difference.
Knowing that nothing can stay the same forever. For the good or the bad, change is necessary and inevitable.
It just IS.
And that?
Can really suck sometimes.
Filed under: 
I sometimes look around and think “I’m in college? Like, really? This is it?” And I get that’s not the same as you being married and having children, but dude, it’s WEIRD.
I’m sorry about your uncle.
I had an uncle named Lee. It’s a good name for a boy, I think. He died too young from a heart attack. But for the rest of us, life goes on… until it doesn’t.
Also, I have a brother named Alden. It’s kind of nice when people have unusual, but strong, names. Just be thankful you missed that terrible period during which everyone was naming their kids Mc-something. McCall. McKalie. McKenzie. McMewannavomit.
I’m hitting 40 this year. In the past few months I’ve noticed a few grey hairs popping up. I’m watching my kids get bigger and bigger, and yet sometimes I still feel like I’m one of them. And it sucks that I’m not. But that’s the way it is. Like you said, it’s something you figure out as you get older. A shame I can’t be as blind to that as my kids are sometimes.
I definitely don’t feel like an adult. I feel more like I’m playing house or something.
It does suck. My dad is going in for surgery soon and it’s a pretty major one and I have such a bad feeling about the whole thing. I just…I can’t picture a world without my parents. Perhaps that is juvenile to say. I know my parents have a limited time left and that is so scary to me.
I lost my dad’s parents recently, but honestly I didn’t really know them. My relationship with my extended family is strained at best. So…in some ways I have been lucky I guess to not yet know how it feels to lose someone I truly love and knowing that will happen…it’s hard to even know what to say about it.
I’m still very young, but every time I think about my age I’m all, “damn. How did I get to 24 so quick?”
I get this. I really do. My grandparents are long gone, and I did not know them well. We’ve been pretty sheltered from death of people we are close to, and it has to happen sometime…
dear llc
this is one of your better posts.
I hated reading this post—not because it wasn’t good, but because it’s true. I know I’m in a state of denial right now, that everything is always going to be perfect, when it’s not.
How depressing.
I totally feel like I’m not a grown up. Thus, my name. I especially feel like I’m still a child when hanging out with my parents – I am instantly returned to a child. I was annoyed though when I attended a recent family do and my brother and I got put at a separate kids table. I’m 36, I think I can manage to eat a meal without spilling it by now!
Sorry to hear about your uncle.
Change sucks
Loss sucks
Sometimes growing up sucks. I’ve heard at least. I am 37 and have a hundred kids and I am still not a grow-up myself!
That was a beautiful post. You are an amazing writer.
*snickers to self* There’s a reason I blatantly call myself the Grown Up Teenager. I don’t think I’m ever going to wake up and feel like an adult. I’m only in my early 20s, but living out of my hometown, without my parents, without my childhood friends, handling my own finances…it feels like I’m playing with Monopoly money (and not just cause I’m Canadian, don’t be a hater) and um, when can I go home to high school?
I feel ya. I really do. Adulthood feels nothing like what I expected it to either, and I don’t think we’re ever ready for loss. We’re creatures of habit that crave the familiar, in my limited experience. Its my version of a security blanket, and dammit all, I’m not giving it up.
But like I said, you’re definitely not the only one. I feel it too…and admit it in my blog title. ;)
I want to know if your Wades and my Wades are the same Wades.
Peter Pan is my Hero. He didn’t want to grow up and neither do I. I cannot believe I have 2 children in their 30′s. I ofter wonder how they got older and yet, I didn’t. My sweet Dad just turned 90. That is quite a feat! He is fabulous and very very healthy, but because of his age I know he will not be around many more years. I lost my Mom when I was 8. That was a bad time for me. Dad remarried and he and my cute little Mom have been married for 45 years. I look at them and see them age. I know they will both be going within the next few years and I am sad. Even with all my children and grandchildren, I will feel like an orphan. I will feel like a canyon will come between my siblings and myself. The majority of the time we get together it is to do something with the folks. I worry that we will not stay as close when the hubs of the family wheels are gone. They are my rocks of strength. Dad has said that his girls may have gotten to big for his lap, but we will never be too big for his heart. I have observed that age does not make you old, your attitude makes you old. Getting older is mandatory, but growing up is optional. Of course you know I never act my age. Don’t want to. I want to be like my Dad someday and have people say that I am the youngest 90 yr old they have ever seen.
Loralee, this was really a pleasure to read. I feel ya.
I totally get what you are saying. I am not (okay really I am, but I don’t FEEL it) old enough for these things to start happening, but I know they are. Except for the loss of my grandfather 10 years ago, I have been so lucky to avoid these things. However, my Mom is the oldest of the five and she keeps ending up in the hospital and it is messing with my head.
So well written. Thanks
I’m sorry about your uncle. I know what you mean-not particularly close but it changes things.
A year ago I lost my grandmother. I was 39. She was 101! And although we were all ‘expecting’ it in many ways it changes you. It changes your family. Suddenly your parents are the matri- and patriarchs, where they were the ‘middle’ moments ago.
I’m amazed at the ‘adult’ feeling when I go around the house at night turning off lights and locking doors. Isn’t that what Mom does? Oh yeah. I am the mom.
(btw-just saw your tweet about 3 funerals. Yikes! Prayers are with you, babe!)
I don’t feel like the adult sometimes either.
I don’t feel like an adult a lot of the time. In fact, I really kind of feel like I’m playing adult.
I got a glimpse of being grown-up when my dad had a cancer scare this fall, but once he was better? Back to feeling like a kid playing grown up again.
I have to say this is probably the best post you’ve written. Very, very true, and you said it SO well!
I’m 66 years old, and I STILL feel like a kid! Part of it may be the fact that I was always the shortest one in any group… my adult height was 5 ft. I say ‘was’, because I’ve shrunk down to 4 ft. 10 in….. Also, I was an elementary teacher for over 30 years, and being around kids KEEPS you young!
I’ve had to say good-bye to all four grandparents, my parents, and out of 18 uncles and aunts, only two aunts are left.
As my mother used to say, “Life goes on.” We need to make the most of each day, let people we love KNOW that we love them, be kind, be honest, and most of all, be good to yourself! We are only here for a little while in the greater scheme of things, so make the most of it. Be someone your children and grandchildren will be proud to remember!
Sharon-
I actually thought a lot about you when I was writing this-about things you had written about your parents and your children and feeling you have had as you get older.
You were a big part of this piece of mine and I want to say thank YOU for that.
xoxoxo
What scares me more is that I’m allegedly towards the top of the intelligence pool… I own a home, own my cars, have a retirement fund, a husband, a dog, two kids and a doctorate. But I still feel like I’m floundering. Do you ever feel secure? I suppose, probably not.
You know… I lost my first family member at age 8 as well. Odd that we have that in common.
I miss you btw.
When can we hang out?
Seriously, sometimes I SWEAR we share the same brain. All these thoughts of yours? I HAD THEM FIRST! Seriously, so weird. You totally freak me out. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Oh… my… goodness! Thank YOU, Loralee. I think you are amazing! You try new things (even if they scare you) which is something I’m not very good at… You have overcome so much in your young life. Keep on keepin’ on, as they say! HUGS!
It can totally suck sometimes. :-(
I do not feel like a grown up most days. Or at least, what I *thought* being a grown up would feel like.
Oh Loralee–I honestly thought there was something wrong with me! I had a conversation with my daughter, who is 14, the other day that while I am chronologically 37, in my mind I still feel like a teenager in my mind. It is like that Disney World commercial were the mother and daughter are enjoying the park together and and as they get on one of the rides the mother turns into a girl the same age as her daughter. I love the feeling when I am able to have fun with my kids like that. I hate it when I have to deal with “grown-up” things and still feel like a helpless kid.
I am so sorry for the loss of your uncle.
I hear you on this, for sure. I was very sheltered from death (apart from two grandparents who I wasn’t that close to, or else was too young to really “get it”) until this past year. And now I’ve just come back from my grandfather’s funeral, and I get what you’re saying. We’re never really ready, and it leaves me feeling very off-kilter. I can’t really even think about other people in my life who could die, parents, siblings, God-forbid children. And yet everything also feels very … tender. tentative. tenuous. Possibly something else that begins with a T. Is this what growing up is? Lately I’ve been wanting to act more responsible and “grown up,” but if all this is what it means, unrelentingly, then maybe I’ll have to alter that goal…
I was never more terrified than when I was old enough to be “grown up” and I realized I was still just as scared, and so was everyone else. I don’t think people grow up, I think they just gather more chores, responsibility, and clout – it’s the only difference, really.
I’m not religious – at all. But in this instance, maybe this is what they’re getting at when they say we’re all God’s children. Because we all feel scared and like we’re hanging out here in the wind.
I share your secret.
I have no idea why anyone lets me be in charge of anything.
I think those of us that grow up physically without feeling grown up mentally are kind of the lucky ones – other people get so bashed about by life that they are tough and adult by the time they are teens. My ex was that way – he had a mentally ill, substance-abusing mother who had a stroke when he was fairly young – so he was made of iron in some ways.
But I think that everybody, deep down, their whole lives, just really wants their mommy.
I am so sorry for the loss of your uncle.
Oh no. I’m sorry to hear of your uncle’s passing :(
I OFTEN look around and go “where the hell am I? Oh snap, I’m at MY house. That I own.” It’s disconcerting. My husband is going to be 35 in just five days. It strikes me as strange to be married to someone who is almost middle aged – until I realize I’m (almost) 31. When did that happen?!?
Is there some magical point where we start feeling like an adult? Because I am still frequently caught thinking – what? I have a kid? How did this happen? And we tried for 2 years to have him. And he’s almost 3. I wonder if our parents still look at us all the time and think that?
I’m sorry about your uncle and your family’s loss.
Hi, just found your blog this morning and read this post and it blew me away. I have the same secret and honestly I thought I was completely alone. I still feel like a teenager and I am waiting for those “grown-up” abilities to kick in. How do I turn them on? How do I become adult. It wasn’t until recently that I started feeling they will never turn on, and seeing some of the comments here I guess I am right. I guess we all just have to muddle through life as best we can and hope for the best. I lost my brother when I was 20 and that was my first serious exposure to death. I dealt with that until my dad got very sick with cancer and there was a strong chance we lose him too. Thankfully he got well but it hit me hard that my parents will be gone one day too and I will be forced to keep going…but how can I when I still feel like a kid inside? *Sigh* It’ll all work out in the end I know, but knowing that I am not alone in this feeling makes me feel 100 times better. I’m so sorry for you loss. Healing hugs and vibes sent to you and your family.
Finding this topic is complete irony to me right now as recently I had the same secret thought about not feeling like an adult. I am 38 years old but am constantly told I look like a young twenty something. Yeah for me!
You are right. It’s a big ol’ scary world out there. Sometimes I’m afraid of all the adult decisions I have to make regarding my children. I know I’m making the right choices and decisions for them but to be responsible for another human being is so overwhelming (and I’m a nurse.) At times it feels as though I’m still a little girl playing house. Wait a minute…playing house as an adult is so much better;)
Any-who…now you know you are NOT alone! But we will ALL kept this secret just between us. Blessings to you and your family for your loss.
HE shines on us.