The Big Easy

Here's the thing: I always thought that "growing up" would entail hardship. That being an adult and having to get a job, pay bills, make appointments and all the other fun stuff adults do would mean I had to struggle at some point. Which is maybe why I'm so surprised to find that so far, everything has been really really easy.

I think I expected to not feel like myself at some point - that there were just some things you had to do in order to be part of the adult world. Things like build a resume and take a job in an office you never really liked. Wear pantyhose and heels on a day to day basis. None of this has ever appealed to me. And only now is it actually occurring to me, that I don't necessarily have to!

As a kid it was drilled into our psyche - graduate high school with good grades so you can go to a good college. Graduate college with good grades so you can work in an office somewhere for the rest of your life. Sometime after that you might fall in love, and when your career is steady you can buy a house together and then build a family. I was quite happy with the high school phase, and even the college phase. But then I went off track. I didn't get a job after college, I worked at a summer camp. Then I moved to Australia, got married, travelled, and am now having a baby and buying houses.

And none of it has been hard. I'm telling you this solely as a way to tell myself this. As a way to remind myself that life doesn't have to be hard. You don't ever have to follow someone else's outline; make your own.

Especially with this baby getting bigger and bigger, and its birth day getting closer and closer, I'm afraid that I will forget that it doesn't have to be hard. Not to say that anything about having an infant - this little person who you literally have to teach how to be a person - to care for is easy in any way. Just that it will only be as hard as you expect it to be. That in having a child, I will still have myself.

And that, that has always been quite easy for me.