Fake it ‘til You Make It

I stared at myself in the Macy’s dressing room mirror. Crisp black sheath dress. Sharp black suit jacket. Professional. Grownup. Just a jaunty neck scarf shy of stewardess.

I’m sorry. Flight attendant.

Oh, honey, my reflection said. You’re not fooling anyone. You’re just a kid in a suit.

But I’m not.

At 31, I’m inching past the age of young professional toward…what…professional? I’ve reached the point of no return—I’m in deep, this thing called adulthood.

But it doesn’t seem that way. Not really. It’s more like I got in the car and drove for hours, days, weeks, and now I’m standing at a gas station on the corner of the Past and the Future and wondering, how did I get here?

I have a full time job with a nice title and a computer with two monitors where I write Important Things for Important People. It’s not just a job. It’s a career. And even though some days I’m not sure I know what I’m doing, I’m pretty sure I’m good at what I do. So I’m told.

The other day I got excited about the arrival of my new vacuum.

I have a husband. We bought a house. We’re decorating a guest room—like a real guest room with art on the walls that didn’t come from Ikea. We talk about things like chimney repairs and floor tiles.

We rescued a dog. An entire being that we are responsible for naming, feeding, walking, trips to the vet.

I worked hard to get here, and I am so lucky.

And yet, it feels like only yesterday I was a lowly copywriter, asking my 30-something colleague when it was that he finally felt like a grownup.

“Still waiting,” he replied.

I am the same age now that he was then. An adult, but still waiting to feel like a grownup.

Even though I’m pretty sure I am one—I just don’t know it yet.

Homework

Scott and I have been homeowners for more than a month now and have actually lived in our house for 3 weeks. We are very much a work in progress–as I understand from the many, many shelter blogs that I have followed since before we decided to buy a home, we will be in this ‘work in progress’ stage until we slap a “for sale” sign in the yard (hah! never!) and move on to our next project. We are pouring our blood, sweat, tears, and a good percentage of our bank account into this structure we call home–and it’s worth every band-aid, laundry load of sticky t-shirts, tissue, and dime.

First things first, floors. Our previous owner had a dog, and an apparent aversion to housework. Finishing the floors had an amazing effect not only on appearance, but, frankly, on the house’s unpleasant aroma. We were referred to an excellent and insanely affordable flooring company that took our floors from gross and grimy:

….to clean and shiny.

It was a transformation that took the house from “oh my gosh, I can’t sleep here, and what is that smell?” to “Feels like this could be home.”

First Place

Someday, Scott and I will tell our children about the journey we took when we bought our first home. Knowing Scott, who loves a good reminiscence, we will tell them this story over and over again. We weren’t sure what to expect on that fateful October day when we started our search.

This was how I felt when I got to the car:

This is Hong Kong

They sat on fraying blankets and sheets of cardboard under bridges and flanking pedestrian walkways. Women, stocking footed, crossed-legged, dozens upon dozens. Some had constructed makeshift rooms from boxes and tape. They left their shoes, respectfully, outside of the door.

Passers-by flaunted Louis Vuitton shopping bags and clacked past in Armani suits and Prada shoes. They didn’t look down, barely a glance.

Comma Chameleon

Hello. My name is Susan. And I’m a commaholic.

I left college with an unflinching grasp on the high-holy rules of writing as dictated within the spiral-bound book known well by journalism school survivors: “The Associate Press Style Guide.” To this day, certain AP faux pas make me cringe.

As in: