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“Hey man, just figured I’d let you know that Sam is pregnant. Keep it on the down low, I haven’t told that many people but yeah, she’s due in six months.”
The above interaction was one I had a few months ago. Something markedly has changed in my life and, until this moment, I hadn’t really figured out what it was. He’s not my first (and certainly not last) friend to continue their gene pool so I checked that off the list. What I finally arrived at being the “change” was that my first reaction wasn’t, “Are you going to keep it?” but rather, “Congratulations man, that’s great. I’m happy for you!”
I’m becoming a real bona fide adult.
A few months ago, I lamented the fact that while I am legally an adult, I still get treated like less than one and I wondered when I’d get my “adult card” in the mail. What is even more unnerving is that while it seemed like a few months went by that I wrote this, it was actually over a year and a half ago.
I don’t really feel all that different but my body would tell you a different story. Last week at my men’s league game, I laid down to block a shot out of instinct. I blocked the shot but this damn bruise on the side of my leg looks like I got hit with a lead pipe and my once Wolverine-like healing seems to be more like Logan. Every week, I seem to be finding a new grey hair in my beard. I regularly have recurring nightmares about losing my hair, mostly because I would look like a penis without it.
Sometimes I feel like the world likes to make an example out of me. I’ve gotten my wish and my “Adult Card” is now signed, sealed, and delivered. My work team trusts me to drive lengthy distances alone to meet with stakeholders for important facets of our project, but there are still days I forget to zip up my zipper and regularly still spill food and/or coffee on myself.
Recently, I was in Kroger buying some beer. I do a lot of thinking in the grocery store as it is my dojo. As I was perusing the beer aisle and walking over to pick up a cheap rack, like I had done countless times, I noticed Oktoberfest was on the shelves. I absentmindedly picked up a case and placed it in my cart while putting back my rack of cheap beer and had an epiphany.
“Wow, I can choose when to buy cheap shit beer.” This may not seem huge to some of you but at one point in college, I paid for a 12-pack of Miller High Life before a snowstorm with the only money I had (quarters for laundry) and read online how to rig our fraternity house’s laundry machines with coffee stirrers. Yes, it worked and yes, I also did this at my first post-grad apartment to the tune of several hundred dollars worth of free laundry.
When I talk to older people (family and friends), no one ever seems to think of themselves as “old.” My mom recently hit 60 and told me, “I remember a time I thought 60 was ancient.” 60 is the new 50, 50 is the new 40, so on and so forth. It puts into the perspective that I feel “old” but in the grand scheme of things, I just finished the tutorial mode of life.
I go to work every day and curate my seemingly professional work-self. I’ve gotten into local politics and real estate. I have a garden and grape vines. I have boring, topical conversations so as to not offend anyone. People have started to call me, “Sir” and “Mr.” way more than I am comfortable with. I help people with their resumes and have been a reference for three people this year, two of them for FBI clearances. In the distance, I can see what I will become and it terrifies me. I used to be ‘with it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. Yes, it’ll happen to you too. .
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Madoff
I specialize in damage control, being the drunkest at any and all functions and social assassination. Always appreciate a strong gif game. Follow me on Twitter. Sometimes I put up cool stuff about golfing at the local dirt tracks.
@BLMInvestment
At a kid’s birthday party this weekend, a 5y/o girl threw a water balloon at me, missed, and I picked it up and said “mess with the bull and get the horn” and then arc’d it to land on the top of her head soaking her. She started sobbing. I am not yet grown up, apparently.
“Peter, you’re a pirate” – Hook
Madoff, I always love your wisdom, maturity and self-awareness in your articles, though I still have no idea if you’re 23, 37, or somewhere in between.
Realized it this morning when my friends who actually went to college and have careers are having kids voluntarily.
27 has been one hell of a year.
Me being an adult:
“Hey man, [insert girl’s name] is pregnant.”
Me: Damn dude, I’m sorry to hear that. You guys didn’t hear about nuclear tensions around the world, the fact that water and seeds will be the new currency after everything collapses, the weather is going fucking crazy and erosion is taking out a lot of land? Way to invite your kid to the shittiest party ever with no choice of RSVP’ing….sure I’ll babysit for you so you can go to the Bruins game and enjoy 2 hours of the freedom you used to have”
Go B’s
Thought I did a good job knowing what ‘it’ was, until I started coaching high schoolers. Now I’ve just accepted that I’m dated and know nothing.
I coach as well and when I try to play my rap music during practice or lifting, they complain about mixtape lil Wayne, don’t know Tupac songs, and put on their 21 savage trash. Gahhh
We throw on 50 cent at wrestling practice… The kids want Lil Yachty or Playboi Carti, and I’m just standing there like wtf is this?!
21 savage isn’t terrible…
Too much for a Monday, Madoff.
Major props for that Simpsons reference at the very end.
A related Simpsons quote that applies more and more everyday: “Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
Those damn young whippersnappers with their Snaphones and their iChats.
I knew I was finally an adult about 4 months ago when the news mentioned teenagers and a few things happened:
1. I realized I was watching the news.
2. I didn’t immediately get offended and say “I’m not like that” only to realize I haven’t been a teenager for the better part of a decade.
3. I was angry with teenagers for doing whatever it was that I’m only 40% sure they’re actually doing.
I’ll say this, at 31 I still have moments where I feel like a fraud and everyone is going to find out. However, while discussing some things with my doctor after a physical, he really drove home the fact that I’m an adult by saying; “Well you’re not old. People live long these days. But at 31 you’re no spring chicken.”
Every time my friend brings his kid around, I not so subtly acknowledge that they’ve still decided to keep it.