Adulthood

The road to being an adult is never an easy one and once we become adults it is never what we thought it would be. As children we imagine meeting Prince Charming, having 2.5 kids, a cat, a dog, the high-powered job and a home-cooked dinner on the table by 6. When we become adults we realize there is no Prince Charming, 2.5 kids is way more work than we thought and if you have a high-powered job dinner is delivered by 6 on a good day.

I started my first foray into adulthood at 19. I met my Prince Charming and; despite everyone's best efforts, I married him in less than a year. He joined the Air Force and we were soon living 2000 miles away from anyone we knew. I managed, after many fits and starts, to graduate from college and get that high-powered job. Seven years later and we were both beginning to glimpse a much bigger world out there.

We tried marriage counseling and after a particularly difficult trip home for the Holidays we knew it was over. He asked for a divorce on New Year's Day. That began the most difficult year of my life.

I was shattered and terrified. I had built my life around him, our friends and our hobbies. I quickly realized it was actually his friends and his hobbies and I was on my own with no idea who I was. Less than two weeks later I was on my parent's doorstep 2000 miles away from the life I had built.

Not one to hide under the covers, I set out to prove to the world what a strong woman I was. I was on to adulthood attempt number 2.

Barely four weeks after ending a marriage I had moved into my very first apartment and started a new job in a city where I had never lived and had no friends. I immersed myself in work to avoid being alone in my apartment. I would sit on my front step late in the evenings and smoke one cigarette after another listening to the noises from apartments around me just to feel like I wasn't alone. Every Friday I would leave work and drive the four hours to my parent's house. Mom was going through her third bout with breast cancer and I wanted to be there with her as much as I could. I was 26 years old.

It was on one of those weekend trips home that I met my next Prince Charming. I went to visit an old friend at a local bar. I showed up in old jeans, a ratty shirt and leftover makeup from the work day. He told me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. I was wearing flannel. That should have been my first clue that he was trouble. Three months later I was in love and he was suddenly "busy." He told me he loved me but it was bad timing. He left for parts unknown. I walked into my bathroom and calmly took a bottle of Vicodin.

I woke up the next afternoon, lying on my bathroom floor. My parents came and that is how, barely six months after my victorious launch into single adulthood, I ended up back in my old room at Mom and Dad's.

It was during this same time that I got an offer to move back to Seattle to help a friend build a business. We would be partners and our first million was merely days away. Two weeks after my pill popping debacle and I was driving across country officially heading into adulthood attempt number 3.

Building a business was, at that time, the hardest thing I had ever done. I ate it, slept it, lived it and breathed it. I worked as many hours as I could and I was desperately unhappy. I lived in my friend's basement room which was right next to the room we were using as our "headquarters" and it was impossible to escape work. I also felt very much like an interloper in their home so I tended to stay in my room when we weren't working. They had four children and quite a routine. I was often in the way.

I picked up a job waiting tables a few nights a week for spending money. Our new business was making some money, but not enough for salaries. I had one friend who kept me in cigarettes and my restaurant job kept gas in my car. I discovered, upon doing my taxes for that year, that I earned a total of $1,968 in six months yet somehow I managed to pay my car payment and insurance and the few small bills I had. I still don't know exactly how I did it. Sheer stubbornness most likely. I also met a man who looked out for me when I needed it the most.

My Mom was going through chemotherapy during this time and had become too debilitated to work. My Dad was trying to work and take care of her all on his own and things weren't going well. Between my Dad, my friend and my brother I was able to fly from Seattle to Texas in September, October and November for a couple of weeks each time. I would fly home, spend two weeks taking care of Mom and set up a schedule for the next two weeks where her friends would come by and visit with her. She was never left alone and every night of the week while I was gone a friend would deliver dinner. I'd go back to Seattle, work for two weeks and start the cycle over again.

In the meantime, we all suffered the horrors of September 11 and our business went under. In October the man I met told me he loved me. In November we closed our business. In December my mom died.

That year turned my world completely upside down and when it was over I was, for the first time, an adult.

I am married to the man I met that year. He isn't Prince Charming. He's better than that. He is real and he is flawed and he loves me like I never imagined possible. He reminds me every day that life is extraordinary. I am also a mom and because of my son I am able to still see the world through the eyes of a child.

I miss my mom every day and at times I am taken by surprise because I laugh like her and that brings me comfort.

Being an adult may not be everything I dreamed it would be, but I can deal with that because it is so much better than I could have possibly imagined.