Things I thought I’d have sorted by now
You had a vision for yourself; for your life as an adult. As a mother. Competent. Organised. A woman who had, in some general sense, arrived.
Here is where that vision currently stands.
The car
You were going to drive a Volvo XC90. Black trim, tan interior. The kind of car that said: I have thought about this. I am prepared. My children are safe and I am not messing around. You had been influenced by Swedish engineering. The safety record. The design. The general sense that the Swedes have quietly figured out how to live correctly and also look very good doing it.
You drive a Fiat 500. You have driven this Fiat 500 for nine years. There are two children in it. Sometimes a dog. The children love what they call the hole in the roof. It is a sunroof. You also love the hole in the roof. That’s actually why you bought it. A fun little car, a sunroof, music on sunny days. The lovely cream dash and interior seats — you may have reconsidered that last part if you’d known what the future would hold.
You just never, at any point when buying this in your late twenties, imagined this is where you’d be. It would be clean. No empty bottles. No ten tiny hats on the floor behind the car seats. No snacks. Recently a child found a cucumber on the back seat during a playdate. It had been there for days. We believe.
The Fiat gets into the best spaces. There’s a gelato place near your house. Busy street. No parking. Impossible. There is always room for a Fiat 500. Yes, you have become a person who says this.
The meal planning
You have all the containers. Every size. Matching lids. Bought with real intention.
The meal planning is still not happening.
You did the baby led weaning. The introduction to one hundred foods. All of them. Yes, more than several times. Your child tried everything. You were going to be that mother. He did try everything. You’re hoping it’s a phase. It’s been a year.
You throw six happies in the airfryer and slap the door shut. 195 degrees. Ten minutes. Beep.
You look across the counter at the Le Creuset cast iron pot.
What you see in the mirror
You used to think: five minutes. Anyone can find five minutes to get ready and put on a bit of makeup.
You now know what five minutes in the morning actually is. Five minutes is aspirational living.
You’re heading out the door to crèche drop-off. Getting ready is now: ponytail, deodorant, brush teeth after slugging a cold coffee at the sink, look in the mirror, nothing visible is dirty. Done.
Meanwhile your son is being dressed with the focus of a professional stylist. He’s three. He’s recently got very into his clothes. The two of you get a genuine kick out of ‘the fit’. Today there’s a t-shirt with a yellow car on it. He loves cars. So that’s peak perfection. But there’s a pop of blue on the car. Royal blue. And you know what would go with that.
You run upstairs without a moment’s thinking for the blue socks. The ones that will make the royal blue on the trim of the yellow car pop.
Somewhere on the stairs you catch yourself. What is wrong with you? The same person who just scraped her hair back and called it a morning. Two minutes ago. That was two minutes ago. You are now climbing stairs for socks to make the trim of the yellow car pop. You are fully committed, obviously.
You recognise the insanity and yet you proceed. You want him to look nice when he leaves the house. The fit matters to you both. It makes you both happy. You know this. You also know that you are leaving the house looking like the women you used to see at crèche drop-off — the ones who looked like they’d stopped getting dressed for themselves. Sleep deprived. Running on cold coffee. Somewhere between who they were and who they’re becoming. You didn’t judge them. You just didn’t understand how it happened. You still don’t, really. Even now, from the inside.
You shake your head, but smile. You bound up the stairs to get the socks.
The career
You thought you’d have a parking space at the office by now. Your own spot. That felt like success.
You got the parking space. You were parked there from 7am until well after 8pm.
And the job itself. You thought seniority meant you’d reached a destination. Sign of experience. Being the one with answers. What it actually meant was that everyone brought you their problems. You had to listen carefully, respond with discretion, and try to solve things that were not always solvable. You are a manager. Not a magician. The distinction turns out to be significant.
You started daydreaming about becoming a barista. Or a florist. Something quiet. Something with your hands. Something involving absolutely no one else’s problems.
Then you realised baristas and florists also have to talk to people.
As it turns out, keeping the Fiat instead of taking the company car was the best decision you ever made. Low repercussions. Clean exit. The little car that got you in and got you out.
What you thought adulthood would feel like
The assumption was: do the right things, get the things. At some point you’d look around and feel like a grown adult who had it together.
What happened is that you realised adulthood is entirely made of trade-offs. You looked at a fifty thousand euro car and thought: I could spend that differently. And you did. You did the hundred foods. You know exactly why your mornings look like this.
You thought if you did all the right things, you’d get all the things.
It just doesn’t look like what you pictured.
The vision was very specific. The life is scrappier, louder, fuller than the vision somehow. The gap between the two never really closes.
You are fully committed to the pop.