Let's Raise a Glass (It's the Adult Thing to Do)

This week brings my 33rd birthday. I enjoy birthdays. Mine. Other people's. I fully believe in celebrating and taking the time to remember to enjoy every moment. 

I remember being a kid and adults saying that time moves quicker when you're older. This didn't make any sense to me then. How could time move quicker? It obviously always moves at the same speed. But now that I am an adult the time between my birthdays has grown shorter. The time between holidays has shrank immensely. The time between one month to the next is almost non-existent (Didn't we just pay the rent??).

The thing about being in your thirties—getting very close to mid-thirties—is you don't feel any older. At least I don't. And talking to other people, they have all sort of said the same thing. I guess when I was younger I thought I would hit a certain age and feel like an adult. But the truth is I don't feel any different than I did at nineteen.

Okay, actually at nineteen I felt a lot smarter. Life has knocked me down a few pegs since then. So maybe I don't feel any different than I did at twenty three.

I thought when I moved out of my parent's house I would feel like an adult. I didn't. Maybe when I got married? Nope. So maybe when we have kids? Maybe then.

But I don't know, I have friends who have kids and I still look at them sometimes and think, who let you do that? Mr. McKay and I went to visit our really good friends in the hospital the day after they had their son (he's five now, and seriously, I feel like this was yesterday). We were standing around, talking, looking at the little alien creature and his little fingers and his adorable tiny mouth—when he started wailing.

I don't think I will ever forget the look on my friends' faces. A look of complete what-the-hell-do-we-do-now? I think the four of us wanted to find the nearest adult, but oh, that was us. When did that happen?

I definitely had a very vivid idea of what I thought being an adult would be like. Dinner parties. Adults have dinner parties. They have people over and they drink fancy drinks out of fancy glasses and everyone is very adult-like and civilized. The result is Mr. McKay and I own a ton of glasses. More than two people should. I just recently had to weed out some glasses from the cabinet because we couldn't fit any more on the shelf.

Why is this? Because when we got married six years ago we registered for glasses. We like to drink and we like to have people over. So we got drinking glasses, and pint glasses, beer mugs, martini glasses, margarita glasses, rocks glasses, and wine glasses. We don't drink wine. But we have friends who do and I thought it would be rude to make them drink wine out of a pint glass. 

I think I also thought that we were going to need all of these glasses. We would entertain and obviously have dinner parties and we would need glasses for all types of drinks.

But as it turns out, we still live in our rented townhouse that does not have a dishwasher. We figured out really quick that if we have more than two people over it's just easier to use disposable cups and dishes.  We throw a big St. Patrick's Day party every year. The first year we had it I made cocktails. We used all of our glasses. I feel like I washed dishes for days after that party.

Every year since, we get disposable everything. I still make cocktails, but everything gets served in a red solo cup. That is just how we roll in the McKay house.

So yeah, we still very much live like we are in college. I am not sure we will ever grow up. Maybe it's just us. Maybe we should be acting our age and making conscious choices to be more adult-like.

Maybe one day I will stop wearing graphic t's and ripped jeans with beat up sneakers. I'll buy nice clothes with 'dry clean only' tags because adults do things like dry clean stuff more than once a year (or in the three days before that wedding you have to go to when you realize your husband's suit jacket still smells like stale beer from the last wedding you went to).

One day I'll feel like an adult, right? But to be honest, I'm kind of glad it's not today.

You guys want to come over for my birthday? I'll make us some margaritas, but can you stop and buy some plastic cups? We're almost out.