Monday, July 21, 2008

Things you realize after too much caffeine.


First, here's a picture of Lina, just to satisfy those questions. It's been a month since I last posted, because she's been keeping me that busy! This was taken a week ago, the day she turned six weeks, and also the day she broke the "smile barrier" - it's a little blurry, but that is a fully conscious smile!

But the real reason I'm posting. I had too dang much caffeine today, and so I was just lying there, tossing and trying to sleep, and had (again, but it's always astonishing) the realization that I'm an adult, and don't have to answer to anyone in particular for my actions. Specifically, I don't have to tell my mom where I'm going...

Allow me to put it into perspective: I have a four-year college degree; I will be thirty-two on my next birthday; Josh and I will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary in about two weeks; we bought a house this spring; I have a professional career, and I'm now a mother myself. And I still have moments - ever more frequently, lately - where I suddenly have that sensation of freedom, of not being answerable to anyone but my husband for my immediate actions (well, and society in general, but nothing in particular to fear there). It's muchly because I lived my my folks for so long, out of necessity; but even when I wasn't living with family, I was living under some other authority - be it the college when I was in the dorms, or the land-lord types at our apartment(s). Now, it's only us - and the bank that holds the mortgage, but that's really a very different feeling. We owe them money, but we don't have to behave according to a code that they lay out for us. We own a house, and therefore are trusted to behave in accordance with community standards, without having those standards handed to us on a photocopy that we have to sign in blood.

Anyway. Lina will be awake in an hour or so to nurse, I'd better try to get some sleep.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let freedom ring! I hated pushing Laurel's stroller because it made me feel like I was pretending to be an adult.