{"id":2124,"date":"2011-04-25T17:57:49","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T00:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2124"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:05:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T04:05:17","slug":"grownups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2124","title":{"rendered":"Grownups"},"content":{"rendered":"

A quick post because all 7 of the other drafts aren’t ready!\u00a0 And life is, as always, crazy busy.\u00a0 Just wait until I start writing again! I won’t have time for ANY new posting!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway.. I had Easter dinner with my mom over at my brother’s house.\u00a0\u00a0 I got to see their newly remodeled bathroom which looks gorgeous!\u00a0 And got to envy a little bit the way their furniture looks so nice and matched and works so well with the paint on the walls!\u00a0 My jealously is tempered with the knowledge that my brother’s wife when to design school so she’s got WAY more of a knack to do this than I do.\u00a0 Plus when I moved into MY house I got it after it was remodeled.\u00a0 My sister-in-law has waited almost a decade to get her BATHROOM done… don’t even mention the work “kitchen” to her! <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We were joined by a couple from their church, which was both unexpected and expected.\u00a0 My brother & his wife are very social and their church is very big on staying tightly connected.. which is only ONE of the reasons its often referred to as a Christian cult!\u00a0 Rarely have I got to dinner at their house and NOT have someone from their church join the family event. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway.. this couple was very nice.\u00a0 Around my brother’s age (making them younger than I).\u00a0 They’d known them & my sister for almost 15 years & met my Dad(whose personality I take after).\u00a0\u00a0 My natural wariness to anybody from my brother’s church (I dislike “God is Everything” kind of people) wars with my desire to met a new audience who hasn’t met “Heather” and heard my stories.\u00a0 New people are potential “Wow you are sooo cool!” candidates that feed my needy ego.\u00a0 Which is always fun for me. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

They laughed at my comments and stories and had great stories of their own.\u00a0\u00a0 And I managed NOT to monopolize the conversation or turn everything about me.. (proud of myself there)\u00a0\u00a0 But…\u00a0 and there is always a but, isn’t there.\u00a0\u00a0 But in one story my mother makes a comment about how she learned from THAT trip to never take a recalcitrant teenager on a trip (she’s talking about when we took a trip to Europe).
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

re\u00b7cal\u00b7ci\u00b7trant<\/em>\/ri\u02c8kals\u0259tr\u0259nt\/<\/h3>\n
Adjective: Having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority.<\/div>\n

Noun: A person with such an attitude.<\/p>\n

To which I exclaim,\u00a0 “I was in my 20’s!” <\/strong><\/p>\n

Which is supposed to be funny and prove her wrong.\u00a0 But the husband of this new couple begins to jokingly argue that I certainly SOUNDED like a teenager.\u00a0 Kind of a “if the immaturity fits..” comment or two or three.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And I found myself bristling.\u00a0\u00a0 I dropped the subject and the conversation naturally flowed into something else and I joined it here and there as if nothing was wrong.\u00a0 But it was at that point that I no longer liked the couple.\u00a0 No.. I take that back.\u00a0 I no longer trusted them.\u00a0 I know a barb when I feel one.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

But I’m also an incredibly self absorbed personality.\u00a0 So I’m\u00a0 looking at my actions wondering if I brought that on myself in any way.\u00a0 WAS I really THAT immature at that age?\u00a0 No, not really.\u00a0 Was I and have I always been and will I always be opinionated?\u00a0 Oh yes.\u00a0\u00a0 Is it immaturity to stand up for what you dislike or like about food?\u00a0 (which is what I was complaining about.)\u00a0\u00a0 Is it fair to label a person immature just because they DON’T enjoy traveling to new countries as much as you do?\u00a0 When you use her to carry 5 bags and she’s both your employee and assistant as well as your daughter?\u00a0 Don’t even get me started on how different the European trips with my brother and sister were when she took them.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

All that popping in and out in my head as the conversation moved on through different subjects.\u00a0 I participated but I realized it was at half mast.\u00a0 And that wasn’t just me reacting to the barb.. it was the company of the room. \u00a0 I cannot talk about sex or dating or men at this table.\u00a0 I cannot curse to embellish nor shock with truth as I usually enjoy doing in a new conversation.\u00a0 As there are kids at this table and my mother and these are all “good church goers”.\u00a0 Gack.
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the end of the evening I was left with two impressions. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One.. grown ups are boring.\u00a0 BORING!\u00a0 Wrapped up in their “I make the right decisions and you do not because you aren’t as grown up as me” assurance they seem like they’ve boxed themselves into their comfortable life. \u00a0 And from that great height they look down on those of us exploring new things and trying the unusual. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I look at the interesting things I’ve done and experienced and how I’ve grown with it and I wonder if maybe that’s why I don’t want to become one of them.\u00a0 Wait.. not grown with it…. expanded.\u00a0 I’ve expanded myself with new experiences.\u00a0 They act like the only growing they can do is to grow closer to God because they’re all finished in all the other areas.\u00a0 Cuz they’re Grown Ups!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The other thing I learned?\u00a0\u00a0 heh heh heh.\u00a0 My nephew got a dose of my sense of humor in the genes he inherited from my brother.\u00a0 Quirky, comedic statements, good delivery and half the time no one gets his humor. He’s young (almost 17) and too good a Christian to be comfortable with my level of humor so I won’t expose him to it.\u00a0 But now I know who I plan on sitting next to at ALL family dinners in the future. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Odd humor is NEVER boring!
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A quick post because all 7 of the other drafts aren’t ready!\u00a0 And life is, as always, crazy busy.\u00a0 Just wait until I start writing again! I won’t have time for ANY new posting! Anyway.. I had Easter dinner with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-joy-of-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}