When did I decide to settle down? I’m not sure I ever did decide that. In my mind it was expressed as “turning into a grownup.”
I thought it would happen when I became independent and self-supporting, living alone and making all my own decisions. I did, and it didn’t.
I thought it would happen when I got married. I was nearly 31 and knew I was with the right man, so when he asked me, I said yes. But I didn’t turn into a grownup. Neither did he.
Then I thought it would happen when we became parents. We’d been married 5 years, and we both wanted to make an “us.” Our son was born, and we couldn’t have been more delighted. But somehow that didn’t do it either.
To us I guess being a grownup meant things like wanting to go to work, feeling solemn and responsible, getting up early in the morning without banging the snooze alarm ten times, eating balanced meals at a regular time every day, paying attention to all the serious stuff like taxes and bills and estate planning and dryer lint, laughing less, wearing old-guy clothes instead of jeans, being predictable, being routinized, being dull, being boring, being old—being like our parents.
Now I wonder what it’s going to take.