Adult Children

Today after church I went to a lunch reception for a friend of mine who is a missionary in Thailand. There wasn't enough room at our table for all of my family plus the two other families who had joined us, so my mom said, "Well, how about this? The grownups can just move to another table and you guys can stay here." By "grown-ups" she did not mean me or my fellow twenty-two-year-old friend. Somehow we still got lumped in with the twelve-year-olds at the kid table.

"Yeah," I said, as they got up to leave. "Because Bethany and I aren't grown-ups so that would make sense."

My mom caught the sarcasm and apologized. We laughed it off. But the comment still irked me. Even though I know my mom meant nothing by it, even though I know she acknowledges that I am an adult and usually treats me as one, I felt undervalued. It's hard to be mature when maturity is not expected.

Living Under My Parents' Roof

I live under my parents' roof. And on their floor. And in a bed that belongs to them. I use their hot water, their electricity, their washing machine. I eat their food. Sometimes I steal sour gummy worms from my mom's secret stash above the KitchenAid. I drive their cars which guzzle their gas which they pay for with money from their jobs. I use their wireless internet and their toilet paper (and it's the nice kind, not like the sandpaper stuff my friends and I bought in college). When I mail letters, which I do often, I take stamps from the drawer in the office.

When I was little, I didn't think twice about this. But now the cost of it all is weighing on me.

I'm twenty-two years old. Twenty-two. When I was in high school and I thought of myself as a twenty-two-year-old—well first of all, I rarely stopped to think of myself as that old, but if I did—I pictured apartments and classy blazers and herb gardens on a window ledge, probably in some trendy urban neighborhood near my purpose-fulfilling job. Mostly the vision was a blur, but I know for certain I did not picture my parent's house, a FedEx truck (did I mention I'm starting work for FedEx in a few weeks?), or a floundering social life. I did not picture my brother's old blue bedspread, my little sister's raspberry shampoo, a precariously balanced bank account.

But for better or worse, college graduate that I am, I live with my parents and my younger brother and sister in the same neighborhood I played in when I was eight. I'm not the only one of my friends in this situation, but in this case, a sense of solidarity is not particularly reassuring.

I've discovered that it's awkward to be an adult but live in the house in which one grew up. I'm not sure if my parents know how to handle it either. How much do I help with chores? Should I pay some sort of rent? Do I still get $10 when I mow the lawn? I'm grown up now, I suppose, and my parents took off my leash a long time ago, but in some ways I feel like I've voluntarily put it back on. I'm trying to be a child and an adult at the same time, and it's not working. I keep accidentally reverting to the maturity level I had the last time I lived in this house full-time, back when I was in high school—fighting with my siblings, holing myself up in my bedroom, leaving my unwashed cereal bowl on the kitchen table. Maybe things will improve once I start working full-time in October. Maybe when more is expected of me, more will be delivered. But at this point, I feel like a less-social version of my 17-year-old self.

These are times when I don't mind constantly being mistaken for a teenager. Because if I were a teenager, people wouldn't expect me to have my life figured out, or at least have a solid start on it. As it is, I'm almost embarrassed to tell people I've graduated from college. I dread their inevitable next question: “So what are you doing now?” The true answer is more complicated than the one they want from me. Simple responses given to such questions are rarely entirely honest. How can they be? People don't ask desiring to hear the whole story, particularly if it is depressing or involved. So sometimes I let people assume I'm still in high school, because it's better for both of us that way.

This strange child/adult dynamic is something I'm going to have to figure out, though, because it doesn't look like I'm going to be moving out any time soon, not as long as my parents are willing to have me and I still have student loans to pay and a nearby job. It's the right financial move right now, as unglamorous as it may be. I know this and so do my parents. So unless I want to be moody and miserable for the next year or so, I need to learn how to live like an adult in my childhood home. I need to re-imagine my city and my house to fit my current stage of life.

I think I also have to learn that it is ok to be dependent on people at times. No one was meant to walk life alone, and if family, friends, or even strangers want to aid me as I stumble my way through this transitional time, who am I to scorn their help? There are a lot of people out there smarter and more experienced than me, and it would be foolish to doggedly insist on doing everything myself. So if my parents want to help me in this way, by offering their home rent-free, giving me the gift of additional time to figure out my next step in life, there is no shame in accepting it. In fact, sometimes refusing to receive such an offer is a symptom only of pride. A friend reminded me of this once when I complained about my distaste for accepting other people's money and my desire to provide entirely for myself. “Britta,” he said, “sometimes people give us things that we don't deserve, but we have to learn how to accept them. That's what grace is. We can't earn everything that is given to us, and we shouldn't try to.” He's right, of course, and I've been reminded of his words time and again over the past few months. So often I think I need to earn everything that is given to me, but if I earned it, it wouldn't be a gift. It wouldn't be free. Learning how to accept the graces of others is a first step in learning how to accept the grace of God.

So maybe growing up, in a counter-intuitive way, means learning how to be dependent again. Dependent in a proper sense. Not needy and ungrateful and helpless, but humbly accepting the fact that I need the help of others and knowing that I probably never will nor should be in a position of absolute autonomy. Financially, maybe, but not in other ways. And there's no shame in that. God designed us for community after all.

I don't plan on living in my parents' home forever, nor do I have any desire to. Obviously it is important for me to learn how to support myself on my own dime in the not-too-distant future. And I want to do that; I want to be more independent. But right now I need to accept the gift my parents have given me, be grateful for it, and find a way to embrace my life.

I feel twinges of guilt and self-scorn sometimes when I think of all that my parents are doing for me and how little I'm able to contribute to the household. I still have trouble unashamedly telling people I live at home. And I definitely haven't figured out my new role in the family with two younger siblings still around and in school. (Do I go to family events? Are my responsibilities the same?) But I'm trying to accept these graces. Because even if I were living on my own in an apartment somewhere, even I were married or in a secure job, this would still be a strange period, a time of learning about myself and what I want and where I want to go. Just because I haven't physically left the house yet doesn't mean I'm not moving in a direction.

This is real life, I remind myself. I'm not still waiting for it to begin.

Observations from the Detroit Airport

There are people crying here. A surprising number, although maybe it shouldn't be surprising because airports are stressful places. I've cried in an airport before, more than once.

A lot of classy-looking business people. Men in suits. Women in pencil skirts and heels. Lots of heels. I don't quite understand this. The women look awkward, like top-heavy storks, as they pull along their suitcases.

A middle-aged woman in floral next to me complains about layovers and how she'd always rather pay extra on a ticket to avoid them. Such a hassle and waste of time. This is a foreign concept to me. I can't image paying more for the convenience of anything right now; that habit has been beaten out of me after four years of college tuition and no spare change. I'm flying to Connecticut from Detroit, but I have a layover in Chicago, which means I go directly west before going directly back east. I also don't get in to Hartford until midnight. About as inconvenient as you can get. But it was the cheapest ticket, so of course I bought it. I didn't even consider otherwise.

I watch a tall man with a cane check his luggage. He is wearing a gray sweatsuit that matches his facial hair, and I decide I like him.

There are a lot of those little carry-on suitcases with four wheels that glide across the floor with a soft buzzing sound. The softer the buzz, the more important you are. Briefcases seem to be made now with a zipper that allows them to slide down the handle of these carry-ons, securing them firmly on the top. It is the look. Those who have it appear self-important. They know they look professional. They do this all the time, fly. It's just business.

I have to wait for three hours in front of the luggage check in a black leather chair because you can't check your bags until at most four hours before your flight leaves. Yes, that is how early I am to the airport. Another example of how cost trumps convenience. This was the only time I could get a ride to the airport, which is two hours from my house. (There is a closer airport, but it is smaller and too expensive for me.) Time is the one commodity I have more than enough of.

There are lots of iphones and ipads out. People sitting, looking busy, alone.

A girl, probably about my age, has just walked past, doing a poor job of concealing the fact that she is crying. Two women next to me get up. “You look like you need a hug,” one says. The girl nods. They each give her one. She says something to explain her tears which I can't hear, although I think it has to do with her boyfriend. The girl and the women do not know each other. The women sit back down and the girl continues on her way, anxiously chewing the straw of her fountain drink. I want to be like those women someday, able to give a hug to anyone who needs one.

As soon as I check my bags, I am going to need a long walk. Sitting too long with a laptop on one's legs causes them to fall asleep. There is a security officer riding his bike through the terminal. That looks like I fun. I want to do that.

An old woman with hairpins has come to pick up her sister. Her sister is old also and cannot walk well, but she refuses to use a wheelchair. “So stubborn,” the woman says. “I don't understand why some people can't just accept help.” Another woman to her right nods in agreement.

Fifteen more minutes until I can check my bag. Good thing, too, because I have to go to the bathroom, and wheeling both of these monstrous red things through the bathroom door is a pain in the neck. Of course I'm not allowed to leave them unattended. Otherwise they might think I'm a terrorist.

A woman in a black suit has black spiked hair and wears too much blue eye shadow.

Later, once I'm at my gate, a Navy officer (or some such other military person—I can't tell, but he's decked out in lots of medals and badges) sits next to me. I hear a familiar tune that reminds me of long childhood car trips and look over to see him playing Mario Bros on his Nintendo. Across from me a man with long gray hair and loafers eats McDonald's fries and talks to his business partner on the phone. The fries look good, but I hate buying food in airports. Money—once again.

(Now the Navy officer is reading a book. It is entitled The Blinding Knife, and the bookmark is a card from one of those Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Magic games.)

On my first flight I sit next to a guy named Damion who is in a philosophy doctorate program at the University of Michigan and started a conversation with me because he saw my Margaret Attwood book. Also possibly because he thought I was cute. I like to flatter myself sometimes with such thoughts. He has black-rimmed plastic glasses, big eyes, and wears a striped sweater. Classic academia.

Damion tells me about his philosophy studies and I nod my head and pretend to understand because I get the impression he thinks I'm intelligent and I don't want to disappoint him. He loves the fact that I'm writing a novel and read good literature. We talk about Raymond Carver and Hemmingway and Steinbeck. I hope the man on the other side of me is listening. I hope he thinks we're smart. When Damion asks me to join him for a quick bite to eat after we land before our connecting flights, I feel a little uncomfortable because he doesn't know I have a boyfriend. And maybe he doesn't care? But it's too late now.

Before we part, Damion gives me his card and tells me to send him a link to my blog. I think to myself, shoot, now people are really reading it, and it had better actually be good. I wonder if there are any previous posts I should delete. I also remember how he strategically asked about my last name. Even if I don't email him the link, he'll probably be able to find it online.

Between flights, at gate B9, the smell of McDonald's is overwhelming. All food from McDonald's, no matter what you order, milkshake or hamburger, smells exactly the same. In a soothing tone, a woman's voice repeats over and over, “The moving walkway is ending.” Once every three seconds. Until it is no longer soothing. But no matter where I sit at this gate, I can hear her.

A woman with a small brown dog watches TV and strokes the dog's neck. The dog looks embarrassed, if that's possible. Like it doesn't want anyone to see it being pampered by this heavy woman with sparkling earrings and leopard print flats. I wonder the story behind this dog. I wonder if this dog is the woman's best friend and if she's afraid to leave it home alone or at a kennel. I wonder what she does if it has to go to the bathroom in the airport or on the plane. Does it pee in its little carrier bag? Does she hold it over a toilet?

On my second flight, the man next to me is happy I asked to take the middle seat between him and a skinny man in a track jacket. “I'm just glad a tiny person like you is sitting there. I was worried that mad gab on the phone was going to ask. Did you see her?” I tell him not to worry, I'm quiet. He says, “That's not what I mean. You know what I mean.” I do know what he means. He thinks she's fat and annoying. This phone lady walks by a minute later, chatting about the number of carry-ons. My plane buddy turns to me. “See?” he says scornfully. I do not like this man. He is mean, and he wants me to be mean with him. When a woman with large breasts walks by, he stares at her chest. Actually, I'm not totally sure that he does so, but it appears that way, and I look at him intentionally, expecting him to. It will only further justify my negative opinion on him. During the flight, he pays the $5 for wifi so he can play with his ipad. He orders a vodka tonic. I knew he was going to.

Myself, I play solitaire on my laptop. I don't have a very good win percentage, but I swear I'm getting dealt bad hands. I play probably eight games and don't win a single one.

A Scene From My Home This Evening

My father to my dramatic twelve-year-old sister: Honey, you really need to go upstairs and do your homework now. It's too distracting for you down here.

Sister (suddenly upset): No, I can't study by myself! I hate that. It's too lonely.

Father: Well, eventually you're going to need to study alone. What are you going to do when we're dead and gone and you're in grad school?

Sister (looking aghast): That's mean!

Father: How is that mean?

Sister: Grad school is for people who can't get jobs! (Storms upstairs to her room.)

It took much persuading to convince my sister that my dad had not, in fact, attempted to insult her. Where is she getting her information? And is she right? I, for one, am a wee bit jealous of my college friends who get to spend another couple years delaying their entry into the world of mediocre jobs and student loans and terrifying amounts of free time. Grad school provides direction. Now I have to create my own.

I'm still deciding if I like this.

Blank: A Work of Flash Fiction

During her lunch break, while she sits in the stifling heat of her rusted white volvo, Ingrid Anderson, age twenty-three and one month, draws a tiny black star on the skin just above her navel with her pen. She has no particular reason for doing so, except perhaps that as she was untucking her green Oxford button-up from her khakis she happened to catch a glimpse of her pale white stomach and it looked unnaturally blank.

Behind her, across an acre of shimmering asphalt, the Maple Valley Health Administration Building rises in five stories of reflective black glass and steel. Very new and very modern. Ingrid works in the middle of the second floor with the other temps and can see none of these windows, just the mauve fabric wall of her cubicle and the sheets of paper which she is supposed to transcribe into the new digital database. Ron Pierson. DOB 6-14-1953. History of diabetes and heart disease. Currently prescribed Glumetza, 500 mg, twice daily. Etc.

Ingrid leans back in her seat, closes her eyes, and considers taking a bite of her mealy Granny Smith apple: the only thing she has for lunch today besides a little bag of dry cereal because she didn't have time to make a sandwich this morning and that was all she could find to grab in her—that is, her mother's—cupboard. She can feel sweat surfacing between her shoulder blades and beneath her arms and wonders vaguely if it will stain her shirt. On the seat next to her is a thin white envelop postmarked from Whitmore Graduate School. It has been opened so carefully that if someone were to glance in the window and see it resting casually on the fake leather they would never notice the slightly rough top edge or see the tell-tale sheet of paper on the floor beneath the passenger seat. They may not even see Ingrid, who after three months on the job has learned the art of being invisible, blending in with her office chair or her car seat or the blank walls of the cubicle mouse-maze, because maybe if no one notices her, maybe even she will forget that she works here, that she is shuffling in the line of the unskilled labor force, widening the time gap between college graduation and her first “real job.” Because she is in the real world now and better make the most of it.

But none of this matters because only a fool would wander around peeking in car windows in this weather, and in nine minutes, Ingrid's half-hour lunch break will be over and she will tread back across the radiating heat of the parking lot, scan her employee card at the side door, and climb up the stairs to her mauve cubicle where she will enter information about Esther Godwin's recent hysterectomy and Kevin William's health insurance, which she is not to disclose to anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances.

There on the second floor, Ingrid will sit next to Patrick, one of the other temps, who still has a year left of college and who talks like a philosophy professor, slowly and deliberately, as though everything he's saying is a profound reflection on human existence, even if he's just telling Ingrid that the photocopier is broken. And Ingrid will sit in the faded office chair that is permanently stuck on the lowest height setting so her shoulders barely rise above the plane of her desk, listening unwillingly to Patrick ponder about post-it notes and what is the plural of pancreas and how indecipherable is this doctor's handwriting. And slowly, she will feel herself sinking, pushed down by the steady drone of the air conditioner, flattening into her chair because gravity has suddenly become too much, has increased three-fold or ten-fold, and her arms and fingers and head have been filled with sand and are impossible to lift. At that point her eyes will slide out of focus and no longer be able to read the words on the screen, which is now nothing but a square of white light; the stapler and paper clips and pens around her will blur and dissolve into the grayness of the desk and the mauve cubicle walls will lose all texture, as will Patrick and Ingrid herself. For ten blissful seconds she will think of nothing but sleep.

Until Ingrid becomes aware of a growing pressure in her lower abdomen, reminding her of the many cups of coffee she drank that morning. And so with a monumental effort she will place her hands on her knees and stand up, remaining for a moment hunched over the desk, not yet able to fully shake off those iron shackles of gravity. She will point her feet towards the bathroom, and they will carry her there, weight and sleep evaporating slowly like steam from her back. The mauve cubicles walls and the forest green carpeting will regain their distinct textures, until Ingrid can see each coarse, individual thread in sharp relief, the reality of the office breaking back in.

The bathroom is large and clean and has an automatically dispensing air freshener that smells like rotting flowers. Ingrid will enter a stall, untuck her shirt, unbutton her pants, and set free the coffee before walking up to the sink to wash her hands, doing her part to “keep our work environment healthy and happy.” For a moment, she will stare vacantly into the mirror, then, hands still wet and soapy, slap herself across the face, twice. Right cheek then left cheek, lips slightly parted like she is about to scream, a sudden glint of desperation in her eye.

Is this my life? Will Ingrid speak out loud or will the roar come from inside her own head, the words pounding against barriers of skull and skin? Is this my life? Louder this time, or at least more forceful; Ingrid will realize that her knuckles have turned white from gripping the edge of the sink. Then the words will recede, slowly, like a wave.

When she emerges from the bathroom and sits back at her computer, her cheeks damp-darkened like sidewalks after rain, she will turn to Patrick and ask whether he is aware that she has a star tattoo above her belly-button.

And Patrick will look at the girl who has never volunteered personal information once in three months and say, no, he didn't know, and for once have nothing more to add.

Then Ingrid will nod to confirm the veracity of her statement, sit in her broken chair, and spin around to face the computer screen and the health insurance policy of Robert Saganski.

But as of yet, that dam has not been breached. Ingrid Anderson, age twenty-three and one month is sitting in her rusty volvo, staring at a Granny Smith apple and feeling sweat trickle down her torso in a growing network of rivers and tributaries, wondering when her life is going to start.

Honey, you'll appreciate it when you're older

Today I was mistaken for a high schooler. Twice. That makes about the 22nd time in the past month.

This is real life.

My Life's Mantra

I have this taped to the mirror in my room, on a sticky note on my laptop desktop, and on a piece of paper I use as a bookmark. I read it several times a day. I have it memorized. I send it everyone I know who I think will appreciate it. For this season, it's my life mantra.

"How many gifts from God will justify trust and thanks? Are the pressures of life stronger than the call to be wise? Show me an adult with the courage to fear differently. Were college loans and healthcare costs and rent and singleness intimidating? Yes. Would fear of these things be the source of my life's intention? Oh no. I'll get a job. And I won't hate it. I'll pursue health, and I won't begrudge the maintenance. I will be in the company of fellow shadowaries and not be underwhelmed. No one will notice me and no one will tell me what to do next, and I won't feel passed over. I decided it, that year, with resolve."
- taken from Prof. Leah Samuelson's chapel message, Wheaton College, February 2012