All Grown Up Now

Recently, I’ve become obsessed with the idea of being an adult. I always kind of assumed that I would consider myself an adult after I graduated college, got a steady job, started paying my own bills and rent, and bought a salad spinner. I accomplished these things almost two years ago (though the acquisition of the salad spinner was more recent), but even though I’m 24, I still feel quite trapped in a childlike state.

My obsession with adulthood began with my quest to find a true, adult apartment. When I first moved to New York in October 2007, I lived with a young woman and her mother. I rented a room in their Queens apartment for $500. The room came furnished, which was nice seeing as I didn’t own any furniture. The only problem was, it was furnished with a twin bed and no dresser—just shelves in a closet and a large bookshelf. I made it work for six months but after I started dating someone who lived out of town, I realized sharing a twin bed and having to ask permission to have him stay over was no longer conducive to my preferred lifestyle. So, I moved.

I moved into the first apartment I could find that I could afford—about twenty minutes (walking) away from my first apartment. I shared the space with two other people—a girl and a guy in their early twenties. They had known each other from a previous job but had decided to move in together when they both moved from Long Island to New York. This new place had its faults—my bedroom had no windows and there was no air conditioning. Not to mention the fact that my room was sandwiched between the other two rooms and, due to the obscenely thin walls, I could hear everything my roommates did. I could even sometimes hear the other end of cell phone conversations. But, the place was also a bit cheaper, in a more convenient location (in terms of grocery stores and laundry services), and I could, in a certain sense, call it my own because I shared it with other people and could claim authority over the same amount of common space.

I stayed there for ten more months and then moved to my current place—an apartment I absolutely love that I share with Bridget, a girl I went to college with. Upon moving in, Bridget and I immediately began to furnish the place. She had brought a sofa and some other furniture from home; I bought a TV and wallpapered one of the living room walls with book jackets Bridget and I collected from work. (She also works in publishing). Little by little the place came together. I bought a desk, which was a very big deal seeing as I work a lot from home. Granted, the desk didn’t really match my dresser or the small bookshelf I brought from my mom’s storage unit upstate, but it functioned. I hung up some pictures, though we never got around to painting and, after a while, we admitted to ourselves that we would never have the energy to paint the apartment now that it was so lived in. After seven months of living here, I finally bought curtains, which arrived today (hence what brought this blog topic to mind). They are yellow and, I think, really complete the room.

When I ordered the curtains a week and a half ago, I was extremely excited for them to arrive. Grown-ups have curtains! This will make my apartment look like that of an adult!

Then, over the weekend, I attended a wedding for one of my boyfriend’s friends from high school. It was a lovely wedding and I had a lot of fun even though I only knew about four people there. The wedding was in New Jersey, and before the ceremony, I had to kill time at the best man’s girlfriend’s apartment while Claudio (my boyfriend) went to the groom’s house to take pictures (he was in the wedding party). The girl I stayed with, Leigh, is incredibly lovely and I’m very thankful that she didn’t think it was strange when I took a nap on her couch—her brand new couch.

You see, Leigh recently moved into her own apartment and had had to furnish the entire thing from the bottom up. So, as she told us, she went around town and bought a bunch of furniture including a bedroom set, a dining room set, a living room set, and a host of decorations. I have to say, she did a lovely job, and when I walked into her bedroom, I was immediately envious. First of all, it was spotless. If you walked into my room right now, you would see stuff strewn about my desk and dresser, a pile of bags on the floor, and books aligned on the windowsill because I don’t have any shelving in my room right now. You’d see that I don’t have a headboard for my bed, my nightstand is broken, and I use that tiny little bookshelf as a makeshift dresser using canvas drawers that barely fit. I still use the bedspread I used in college even though I have a full-size bed and the spread is twin. I haven’t been able to find a bed skirt I like, so you can see all of the boxes under my bed (though, to my credit I went to The Container Store and bought storage bins so that area wouldn’t look so tacky). But, hey! I have curtains!

Leigh’s room on the other hand was adult. All of her furniture matched, and she had selected curtains and decorations that matched the bedspread perfectly. She had one plastic storage unit, but she had placed it discreetly under her desk so it was barely noticeable—much more grown up than the stacks of files I have beneath my desk.

I made myself feel better by reminding myself that my apartment was small and that I didn’t make a lot of money and had been forced to purchase my furniture piece by piece—hence the hodgepodge of items I’d collected and why I still used bed sheets I had in high school.

But my reassurances became moot when I changed into my dress for the wedding. I had selected a black spring dress I’d purchased for $30 at New York and Company my senior year of high school. I’d worn the dress to my high school and college graduations (though you can’t tell from the pictures since the dress was hidden under my gown) and probably a handful of other times. The dress still fit and was in good condition and it hadn’t really gone out of style. Plus, it didn’t wrinkle, which made it perfect to shove in a bag for a weekend trip to Jersey. Low maintenance—very grown up.

Compared to what Leigh wore, it was a rag. She had purchased a brand new, black, strapless dress especially for the occasion (though she said she had to because everyone at the wedding had already seen all of her other clothes), and when she put it on, she was a knockout. I felt like the high school kid I had been when I first wore my silly little floral-print dress next to Leigh in that superb adult number. I reflected on my own wardrobe—I owned not a single piece of clothing remotely like that one in style or class. My wardrobe was completely juvenile.

I’d been thinking this for a while. I haven’t gained or lost any weight, essentially, since I stopped growing taller, so I rarely, if ever, outgrow clothes. Hence, I have a habit of keeping clothes in my closet because they still fit, are in good condition, and I may want to wear them again one day. The result? On most days, I look like a schoolgirl. Every morning when I pick out what I’m going to wear to work that day, I want to immediately rush out of my apartment, take the N train to 59th street, and buy out Bloomingdale’s. Though, let’s be honest, we all know I can’t afford to replenish my entire wardrobe with clothes from Bloomingdale’s.

My dress was fine. No one complimented it, and I ended up looking sort of fat in most of the pictures, but whatever. I’m never going to see 98% of those people again, so who cares? Of course, as soon as I arrived at the wedding, I was met with a whole new batch of insecurities.

I love weddings. I really do. I’m actually sorry my friends haven’t started getting married yet because I haven’t been able to go to many. Weddings are celebrations. You get to dress up, eat until you’re constipated, dance until you pass out, and drink until you vomit. All in the name of love. Of course, ever since the last wedding I attended (my cousin Jennifer’s in 2007, during which my older female relatives kept telling me how I was “next”) they’ve also been something else: a reminder that I have still not settled down.

I realize I’m 24. Twenty-four is too young to get married—at least for me. Granted, this probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve never been in a relationship that’s lasted longer than six months (though I’m about to be). Even so, when you’re surrounded by people who seem to have their lives planned out, you can’t help but feel a little immature.

And as lame as I think some adults are (must you become a homebody and a crappy dancer just because you’re married and have kids?), I still want to be like them. I want to have a husband, and a home to share with him. I want to have kids (I keep having dreams that I have a young son, though they’re super disturbing and perhaps more appropriate for another blog post where I examine my psyche), and I want to take pictures with them and send them out on Christmas cards (not really). I want to have a grown-up house, with a grown-up mortgage, and a grown-up dog. I want to have matching bedroom furniture. I want to paint the walls of my living room, and I want to paint them yellow. I want to worry about retirement and life insurance and my will. I want to lose my ability to hold my liquor. Screw Toys R Us! I want to grow up.