On being grown up

[dmaze]

I still haven't really successfully wrapped my brain around this "grown up" concept. There are a lot of bits to this; several of them revolve around money. Maybe I want to buy a car, or a house, at some point, so I should save up for this. But maybe I want to buy some furniture now, so that my bedroom can become less of a pit, and thus enhance my quality of life. Or maybe I want to do things like go on trips to places that are fun, but expensive, and have no long-term redeeming value. All of these are...choices; I have to decide how important (a) is, so I can decide how much money to spend on (b) and what, if anything, is left for (c). There are also lifestyle choices; I eat out a lot, and that's a major source of socialness for me, but it's also expensive and not necessarily healthy.

There's the question of toys. When I was still a grad student, I blew $40 on a copy of Black and White, justifying this by saying it would help preserve my sanity by giving me something to do. The last time I tried to set out a budget, I had an explicit line item for "toys". But I still have a big mental barrier against actually going off and spending money on things; shopping is hard, and I have this vague fear that I'm going to go on a shopping spree and blow everything I have saved up. (Somewhere in here, too, is the realization that I can buy things that aren't necessarily "socially acceptable" and nobody will really care.)

And then there's the relationship question. As much as I hate to admit it, my family isn't necessarily being unreasonable in asking when I'm getting married; this relationship has gone on for quite a long time. Several people I know are at various points in the wedding process, somewhere in between "just engaged" and "been married for several years". Being a not particularly religious person, there's the question of just what marriage is; is there something more than "I promise not to dump you"? Aside from sundry legal bits, does it actually matter?

The future is kind of scary too. I know I don't want to stay at this job forever, and while I have some latitude in looking for something new, I've been afraid to start the job-hunting process. Will I find what I'm looking for, and what exactly is that, anyways? Should I feel guilty about asking for more money than it seems like I need? Will I be able to stay in Boston?

In some ways I feel like I'm lacking direction. But if I had "direction", I'd have a job I felt was more permanent, a solid financial plan, enough money for enough distractions to never be bored, and I suspect more general personal and social clue than anyone really has. I've settled on a couple of things (like lack of grad school) that I know are Decisions that are Right For Me. But trying to Get Everything Together, and still be happy at the end, seems like...if I actually went off and answered all of the Big Questions, then I'd have no chance to adapt to anything and make my life better as things changed.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I feel that the legal institution of marriage should be abolished because the actual relationships that actual humans set up for themselves are far more complex and varied than the law can ever hope to encompass; as long as we have a legal institution of marriage, we will always be discriminating against people who love each other. By all means let's keep some of the legal relationships that are handy to have (such as medical decisionmaking), and by all means let's have the relationships we keep available as a package deal to those who want to run their lives that way, but let's treat them as contracts between adults, and allow anyone capable of making legal contracts to enter into them as they choose -- and treat adults as individuals before the law. Also, because I feel that law and love have nothing to do with one another, and that it's tremendously patronizing of the government to believe it can say "yes, well, you two spent time together before, but now it's real." Real is like the Velveteen rabbit showed -- something people make in their hearts, untouchable by such institutions. I abhor any belief that government sanction can make my love more complete, enduring, or adult than it already was, and yet, given how legal sanction is woven into ceremony, and how the social netherworld inhabited by long-term gay couples demonstrates the importance we place on the legal aspect...that belief is too widely held.

The religious aspect should be allowed to do whatever respective denominations see fit, of course. And the remaining aspects are, practically speaking, unabolishable, and I'm fine with that, though I would like to see a broader range of relationships better established in the mainstream so that people are less able to make assumptions.