My brother has just turned 40 - yep the big 4-0 (he is my older bro I hasten to add - oh so so much older than me...!)
I think that I am not v Grown Up, and indeed feel a bit of a fake really. Reasons for this include the fact i have never had a Dinner Party (BBQs and friends round for lots of wine and then when feeling snacky raiding the crisp cupboard dont count); I do not possess a Cake Tin (I think its rude not to buy them from shops when they're already made for you but i do get v excited when someone produces genuine home made ones); i don't do Couply Things with couples (and I'm not in a couple); I do not have a dish washer (surely a basic mod con these days); I have never been one of those Proper Mums that is always at the school gates, goes on school trips, signs Son up to every club going or makes birthday cakes (no cake tin of course); I definitley do not have a Barker and Stonehouse house (would I want one?).
But my big bro I think beats me at Faking It, tho I dont often say he beats me at many things, and I realise all is not going to change when I hit the next Big Birthday. Yes, he has a job, car and mortgage. But he, for instance, is so not a Grown Up, that he doesn't own a tea pot (his partner took the last one when she left - but that was about a year ago); his biggest/ only responsibility is two cats (but only by default as the ex girlfriend left them behind when she took the tea pot); he enjoys many a boys night in when him and pals play into the early hours on their playstation games (even more so since ex left); and he can still throw a fabulous strop at the end of his own - very long and liquid - birthday party and disappear to bed without saying anything to the guests who are still drinking and making merry on his behalf (and not remember why he did so in the morning - exactly like his 18th b-party and many others since).
I wonder if its something in our genes, generation, or whether our parents did something for us to turn out this way - nature or nurture - I'm sure my mother must wonder at times too.
5 comments:
Although I am frighteningly grown up in years, in reality it's all a bit of a fake. For instance, I didn't have a proper dining suite until I was over forty, shock, horror, and even then it was a knackered "antique" one with no back to the sideboard. I just couldn't conform and get a grown up one that all matched. Same with everything really, I just have to be different (some say "awkward"). I don't even have a deep fat fryer. Or a bread-maker. Or a candlewick bathmat, come to think of it.
I am a real failure on the domestic front.
Yep, I'm a failure too.
Years ago, when people got married, they were given presents to 'set up home' with. All the necessities. These days, people are usually already living together and it's assumed they already have everything. When I got married, my best present was £50 worth of CD vouchers!
I often wonder if maturity just creeps up on you and one day you have all the things you're supposed to (as if by magic, somehow). I've not got much more than when I was at uni (well, perhaps with the addition of an iron, millions of books, a fridge not filled with alcohol; oh, and bills). I don't plan to grow up anytime soon!
I'm a fake too, and nearly 50. Never had a dinner party, and as I didnt get married till I was in my 40s and Himself was nearly 60, we asked people for - guess what - flowerpots!!
Theres something very reassuring when you realise others feel the same and you're not alone!
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