Grown Up?

Though I am in my late twenties, I have a hard time feeling like a grown-up. Each year on the first day of school, I find myself sturggling with the seemingly absurd idea that true grown-ups would trust a class of teenagers to my care. It's just crazy.

One of the areas that I my hestitancy to be a grown up becomes apparent is my contentedness with apartment dwelling. I understand the argument that I am just throwing money away in monthly rent. I just have no desire to own a place. You have to be a grown up to own a home.

This past spring, the observation was made that all of our married friends had a preoccupation with their grass. All discussions would eventually return to the type of seeds they were trying or new methods of riding the yard of crab grass. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am eager to be married; really I can't wait for that day. But at the same time, becoming married seemed to make all of my friends more grown up.

And now the same thing is happening to my single friends. While I was out of the country, the last two renters in my core group of friends, closed on houses of their own. They left me to be the sole apartment dweller. (And now Rebecca is serioulsy considering buying a place and I will just be throwing rent money away to her.) And they have all grown up. On my first full day back to Atlanta, I found myself accompanying two friends to Ikea where they looked at appliances. And then on Friday, Beth F. gave me a full rundown of the kitchen remodel that she is plannig. She asked my advice on things like the cabnitery and paint color. I had nothing to offer. That's grown up stuff.

I guess that my friends are all just going to grow up without me. I suppose that I will just have to resign myself to conversations about home maintanence and neighborhood association fees. As long as I just don't totally revert and move back home, I think that I will be fine.

Two Weeks Later

I think that I did a great job of keeping you up to date while I was gone, but now it has been almost a week since I have been back and nearly two since I have posted. Shame. The truth is that I don't have much to write. And while this normally wouldn't stop me, since I have been home, more people than I expected have been telling me that that were reading and that makes me a little nervous.

This is Alex and I on the Great Wall.

Our time in Beijing was nice. It was super cool to visit the Wall and all of the sites in Beijing. It was also a nice chance to unwind and spend some time thinking about the last month. However, being in Beijing made me miss the laid back attitude of the city that we had just left.

The flights home were okay. While we didn't get bumped to business again, we did score an exit row for the long flight. I will never fly without the aid of Xanax again- it is truly a marvelous little pill that creates an anxiety free Beth. There was only one brief period of time when I thought that I was going to lose it and demand an emergency landing. It was on the San Francisco to Atlanta flight and Alex (being a gentleman) gave up MY aisle seat (that I had so graciously allowed him to have) to a woman who said that she couldn't sit in the middle because of a leg problem. So I was between this woman, who had no awareness of where her seat ended and mine should have begun, and a late-teenage girl who thought it would be comfortable to put her feet up on the fold down tray. A state of claustrophobia set in that even the Xanax couldn't contend with.

Coming home, jet lag has kicked my tail. The first night, I woke up at home but for about 2 minutes I had no idea of where I was. After that I had trouble sleeping past 3AM. I finally slept at decent hours for the past two nights, but I think that is only because I have been taking cold medicine for the head cold I picked up upon returning. Also, I won't go into detail, but my stomach has had issues readjusting. It hasn't been so much fun and I can only say that I am glad the jet lag going wasn't this debilitating.

This week I have been meeting friends for lunches and dinners and shared stories. I finally have gotten all of my pictures developed (all 337 of them- a number I realy like) and I need to start the process of getting them into an album.

Yesterday I took Uncle Chief (see a post in early April about the eye clinic) to the VA hospital. When he got in the car and I asked him how he was doing, he informed me that the bleeding and weeping behind his eye has slowed down and I knew then that it was time to change the subject.

We are headed to the beach next week. Unfortunately, it looks like Dennis is going to make landfall and possibly supercede our reservations at Gulf Shores. The area is just finishing recovering from Ivan last year and it is sad that it looks like they could have a lot of damage again.

I'll try to find something exciting so that I will be motivated to post. For those of you who were just reading for the China stories, it has been nice having you along. Maybe I will go back next summer and you can rejoin in on the fun.

Right now, I think that this is my favorite picture of the Wall.