I know I've been talking about growing up and doing all those unpleasant adult things while trying to also remain young at heart but I have to let you in on a little secret--I'm terrified.
Moving into our new apartment has been exciting, and decorating it just as I wish has been sweet, having all my friends over to christen it with a party was fun, but Sunday morning when I woke up puking it was as if all my fears came up with the alcohol I had so unwisely consumed. I had my mother over for Mother's Day brunch, and it gave her and my other sister a chance to check the place out. Then when they left it was nice to sit in the silence of my own home, not being bothered by anything my mother asked me to do. Doing dishes is much nicer when you're not nagged about doing them.
Jules and I made a run to Target, since I had a birthday gift card in hand, and then came home to watch About A Boy in the comfort of her down covered bed. Watching that movie gave me a voice for what I've been feeling lately. A little homesick, actually. Marcus, the little boy in the movie makes an insightful statement, about how a couple's not enough. You have to have more people to be your backups. Having a chain of people makes that frightening feeling of loneliness fade away a little more.
I've never really lived away from home, except that five months in New York and a year living in a freshman dorm I've always woken up to the sounds of my parents' house. There have always been an inordinate amount of people coming through our home, and sometimes I longed for silence, my own space where I could do what I wanted. But often I reveled in the boisteriousness of my home and my family. But things fall apart, as Yeats said, and my family crumbled a little. That safety net of grandparents fell away in a span of a few years, my parents seperated and divorced, my brother joined the army and went to Iraq, my sister got married and also joined the army. And now my mother's selling the house that we lived in for 13 years. By the time I was 11 my family had moved 11 times, but finally we stayed put and I grew up. And now that I am an adult, and supposedly ready to face going out on my own I really am being shoved out of the nest. Part of me is excited about being on my own and part of me is terrified at the prospect of being without that safety net, as restrictive as it could be sometimes, it was also comforting.

I think, like Marcus said, we need more than just two people, right now Julia and I are in the place by ourselves, and soon Kirbs will be joining us, more people will be coming too, someday I'll fall in love and start my own family and the safety net will be one I'm providing. But I wonder if the safety net I create for my children will be enough for me too, or if I'll see past it into the great unknown as I do now, and realize that being grown up means feeling a little unbalanced and uncertain.