Do you ever feel like a fake adult? Like, why would anyone leave you in charge to take care of people, bills, and a household? Do you ever feel like you are in some elaborate game, just pretending to be this person with answers, when the truth is, you have none? I’m all about jumping in, you know when someone gets hurt and has to sit on the bench, but I think it is really hard to be a starter. I’m not the shortstop. I’m the pinch hitter. Sometimes I feel like that, especially when you need a new water heater or your basement gets flooded with a rain storm. When is the real adult going to emerge to take out this god forsaken recyclable can? I’m just a kid. I have a TV show to watch.
Today is my birthday. Well, by the time this comes out, it will be a day late and a dollar short, such is my life. But, I’m getting older and “wiser,” now. And by wiser, I mean, just older. Sometimes my kids ask me questions and I’m like, “I have no idea, ask your mother.” Then I look in the mirror and I’m like, crap, it’s me. Like the Instagram emoji “IT ME,” it is only us that can answer these questions. But, really…who has the answers? Not I. I just want to curl under a blanket and watch Bachelor in Paradise and text my friend.
Google has the answers, I guess.
I had the morning to myself and it was beautiful. I sat on the beach and watched the tide come in, a true birthday gift. I’d like to say that I had all of these enlightening thoughts that I could share, but I had none. I literally just watched the waves come in and I didn’t think. At one point, I lost the badge that was given to me from the house that we rented and I had to become an annoying fake adult with a one-track mind. “Where is the badge? Did anyone see the badge? I need that badge”
It was at that point that I truly valued the moment when I didn’t have to actually think about the badge, have any answers for that matter, or be in charge of three little tiny humans that look to me for guidance.
Sometimes we need moments where we actually don’t have to think that we have the answers and don’t have to think of all the things we need to do and accomplish as these people with the “answers.” Sometimes we can just be and watch the tide come in, without thoughts clouding our very adult minds, like they usually are, at every second of the day.
The only thing we can know, as we get older and our children get older, is to trust ourselves. That will always be the answer to every question, Trust.
It is the only thing to truly hold on to as we get through this life, because judgement is all around us. People have opinions, strong opinions on how to parent, what is appropriate and what is not; in their own heads, they believe they are right. Some people think that they have ALL the ANSWERS; some of those real adults, you know the type. But, when they affect you and your family, that is where the line needs to be drawn in the sand, deep enough to leave a mark, so that the ocean doesn’t blur it. Don’t let them get to you.
Just watch the tide come in, and be you. And if your kids ask you a question that you don’t know the answer to, make it up, google it, or just say, “I don’t know, let’s figure it out together.” Because that is all we can do when we are pretending to be adults, learn as we go, throw a dart at the map and hope that the answers will find us, carrying all the hopeful information that can lead our children (and ourselves) in the right direction.
Noreen Heffernan, Writer, MA in Public and Corporate Communications, Certified in PR , Writer, Growing Ladies and Beautycounter Consultant,
Noreen.heffernan@gmail.com