immature

Ya know what I feel like screaming sometimes? “I’m way too irresponsible for all this!” and “I don’t want to be awake right now either! So fine, don’t do anything and I’ll go back to bed and no one is going to school today. Who cares?!”

Every morning I get up around 7:30 am (sometimes earlier, like today) and nurse Ray, then around 8 am I go out into the front room, where the other boys are, already awake, and tell them it’s time to get ready for school and take showers. Liam usually falls on the floor. Which was my first response as a kid. He’s stealing my thing. And Noah immediately whines. And I think, “when did I become the responsible parent person? I don’t want to do this either. I’m with my kids. Let’s not do any of this stuff”. And it occurred to me that they will never know that about me. To them – I’m the enforcer, the straight arrow, the one who makes mature choices and handles things others don’t want to … like laundry. But I’m not! And I feel like screaming that at the top of my lungs today.

Maybe it’s because I have a birthday coming up. I am going to be 32 this year. And I feel like I’m getting old. I remember not being at all like what I am today. I was never on time to any. single. event before I was 22 and I broke that record only for my own senior vocal recital. seriously. Ask Daniel. It drove him crazy that I was always late. Growing up I never cleaned my room or made my bed. My parents were disgusted, but not surprised, to find a moldy plate of food under my bed once when I was a teenager. And I don’t think I attended the  majority of my classes until my sophomore year in college. I didn’t eat well or watch my weight, I never exercised, I stayed up too late and slept in every morning, I didn’t hold a steady job until I was married, and I never wore cardigans. I don’t wear them. The only reason I’m wearing one today is because I haven’t done laundry and all the sweatshirts I fit into have baby throw up on them. The rest of my sweatshirts are too small right now, because I’m chubby. I wore jeans, t shirts, a pair of Vans and a sweatshirt, almost everywhere. I remember hating the fact that I had to wear a skirt on Sunday to church because I didn’t want to shave my legs, so I found a long, black skirt that I wore all the time because it hid my hairy, unshaven legs in college.

I never knew how to cook and didn’t care. I never threw parties for others – I attended them. I never decorated my house or apartment until I bought a house with Daniel about 5 years ago.

Some of my favorite memories are from times when I was the most irresponsible – staying up all night playing “mow” with my roommates and Daniel in college, driving to Santa Cruz with Mike and Liz one Saturday with no plans – then ending up at KFC and laughing our bums off (I lost my wallet that trip. good times), stopping by Ben’s house to chat at any hour of the day or night, going snowboarding my freshman year in college and blowing half my allotted money for two weeks in one day, piling as many humans as we could into the back of somebody’s pick up truck and heading out to the dollar theatre in Provo, Saturday mornings with Daniel that year we lived it up in Orem …. ah. It all seems like a distant past now.

Now I have a schedule … a routine. ugh. terrible words. I have a certain amount of time allotted to me each day to get what I need to get done and I use it to do laundry and dishes and clean up around my house. What the heck happened? When did I pop out three kids?? When did they start going to school? How did I get responsible enough to even sign them up for school? …. I should probably wear my responsibility and orderly-ness (not a word) as a badge of honor. But I don’t. Not today anyway. It just makes me feel old.

Well, that laundry is still calling my name. I guess procrastination doesn’t make things disappear.