An ole to Chachkis

You know why I am not ready to have kids just yet? Because I'm not ready to hang and "show-off" their ugly art projects around my house. I mean, I'm sure I can come up with quite a few other good reasons, but this one is quite prominent at the moment. I don't want your "sand art" on my counter or your play-doh sculpture on a shelf in the living room. I'm not ready to live next to these things in my living room.

This recent revelation strikes me as entertaining for a lot of reasons that you probably won't see coming.

I remember one specific Christmas morning, all tearing through our presants, or maybe it was a Christmas Eve, when my Mom opened a country-style, carved out of wood, faux-antique-looking angel. She would place it on a shelf somewhere, (maybe to fill a space previously occupied by a Pottery 1 masterpiece) and she would love it. She was genuinely grateful for the gift. I was genuinely confused, and a little concerned. I remember asking her in all sincerity, "Mom, will I ever like getting those kinds of gifts?" Those country-atyle house pariphinalia gifts? Those Christmas Tree Shoppe purchases? Is there a certain age where this becomes expected and then, appreciated? I feared for my fist chachki. My Mom laughed and said, "One day you'll like getting these for your own house, yes."

And so now, here I am in my life, deciding that I am not ready for my own children because I do not yet appreciate their works of "art". And I feel that this is a perfectly reasonable way to asses my own readiness, mostly because of that Christmas-conversation. Because I have reached the point where my "wish list" includes things like; garlic press, large serving spoon, end table, plant (perhaps), chachki big enough to fill the god-damn, intimidatingly large, glaringly white wall above my couch. I get it now. It happened so suddenly, this rite of passage to a very small part of adulthood (woman-hood?). This only leads me to believe that soon enough, without my own awareness, I will walk up to a poorly executed cut-and-paste rendition of Hannah Montana, say, or The Wiggles (god forbid) and think, Ohhh look at this! This is magnificant, I would frame it and hang it next to the shelf in the living room with the wood-carved pine tree on it!
Because suddenly, against what may have at one time been my will, I will want to live next to all of these things in my living room.

This is a strange and unexpected way to make a point that I feel has been bubbling under the surface for quite some time now. The same point that has been milling around in the Drafts section of this very blog, dead-ending in a sentence or two, maybe a paragraph. But my thoughts, and therefore point, was consistantly interrupted by something I didn't really understand until now, the point itself. My life has changed. And for once, it has changed in such a natural and simple way that I was forever interrupted by the fact that...I wasn't freaking out. I would think, I should write! I would sit down. I would want to share that my life has changed. I would start writing, and I then I would fumble over boring vocabulary and poor attempts at humor and think, why does this feel like I'm trying?

Then this whole connection happened for me, the strange one, that I started this whole essay with...that one. And I thought, my life has changed, sure, but that doesn't mean I've become boring and incapable of finding humor in it. My life is still quite funny and entertaining, as far as I'm concerned. Just because I don't mind a gift-wrapped chachki or kitchen utensil doesn't change the fact that I still cope with my ridiculous life-decisions and day-to-day misadventures with self-depricating humor.

Like my adventures of theme-dating...where I only met guys named Dave, then there was the short theme, the "Peter-Pan" theme and then the red-hair streak. Two in a row earned a "theme" title...some overlapped- I haven't dated that much. (And I think I'll take a haitus...until a husband-theme presents itself.)

There are my mis-adventures of, how old am I, really? Strange little middle-ground we tread at 25. Am I too old to pre-game in my car before entering a bar in pumps with my roommate?? Ehhh, verdict just came in this morning and I'd say it was a close call, but a no, nonetheless. Am I too young to stand on my "I don't want a boyfriend, I just want a husband" soap box? Mmmm, maybe. Maybe easier said than done, especially with the theme's being what they are, and the pre-game and pumps verdict being what it is. Am I too old to wear a green T-shirt and a Viking hat in the streets of Boston with 1200 other people in the middle of the day? Definitely not. Am I too old to do this until 3 a.m.? Yes. Research says yet. 25, it's a strange place to be. Some 25's have spouses and kids. Other 25's have roommate and hobbies.

Hobbies. Another comical piece of this new life I'm in. More like extracurricular activities. Extra to my 9 to 5er. Graduate classes (now feel more like extracurricular than curricular), softball, rock climbing, road races, kicball? I feel like my "why not" attitude that previously had me packing up and dragging life around this country has transformed in to a resume of extracurricular dedication that would make any high school guidance counselor proud.

I remember asking, is there a certain age where, all of a sudden, you want to be...still? I remember answering, not for me, never...I'll never be still.
My life has changed. As it always does and for everyone. It all feels very natural. There is no more resistance to where, why and how and when- the very feelings that had me at highs and lows so extreme that I, well, definitely created a chaos to negotiate with. Now I am negotiating with what feels like the opposite, a non-chaos, a calm. I am far better at it than I ever assumed I would be. Especially given that I have a gift for chaos and the art of creating it wherever I am. I've just learned to root it, and enjoy the moments of here-and-now-and-Ole that it leaves in it's wake...because I am still, and I can.