Being true to myself

I am not a teenager anymore. Yes, I realize all of you out there know this fact, but sometimes I, myself, forget it. I feel seventeen most of the time. Clueless, a little naive, almost innocent in some bizarre way, where I'm not really innocent at all, yet, people still somehow manage to shock the hell out of me sometimes. I don't know all there is to know of life, and I'm not sure I'll know that. I could live to be a hundred, and probably still feel maybe thirty-five at most. Hell, I don't even know what thirty-five is supposed to feel like, so I'll probably still feel seventeen in a wrinkled old prune body, with no teeth and gray hair and boobs hanging down to my knees. Although knowing me, even if I was a hundred, if I still possessed my mind (God willing) I'd be dying my hair purple or something and still wearing Converse and chatting up the old tattooed people in the nursing home, talking about our glory days.

I sort of refuse to grow up. I suppose I should at some point. Maybe? I don't know. I am somebody's mother and have been for seventeen years now. But I kinda missed the memo where I was supposed to wear a bun and join the PTA and suddenly bake cookies a lot and drive a Volvo station wagon. I never fit into the 'mom groups' at school. People thought I was the wacky nanny, or the older sister. No one ever took me seriously, and I was always the weird one waiting in the group of carbon copy Barbie doll mom's who were way older and had too much plastic surgery, while their husbands made millions doing stock market bullshit or something. In adulthood, I never fit in, any more than I ever fit in as a child or a teenager.

I've always been on the fringes, and I've always been a bit off kilter and weird. It's just me. And for years, between the ages of perhaps seven and eleven, I tried really, really hard to fit in to the crowd. I did NOT want to be unique or different. I wanted to be another sheep, just blindly walking through life, doing whatever it is sheep did. What do sheep do anyway except stand around and be all fluffy and sheep like? Who knows? But I wanted that to be me. I would lie awake at night praying to lose thirty pounds and be beautiful and perfect and popular and just like everyone else. I went so far as to buy knock off Esprit tote bags, so everyone would think I was as rich and cool as everyone else in 1986. I remember a time when I absolutely refused to set foot inside a K-Mart because I was terrified someone would see me there, and accuse me of wearing the Blue Light Special, instead of the $80 Guess jeans everyone else had. To which, my mother would try and inform me, if someone saw me inside there, they themselves would have to be inside K-Mart as well, therefore making them just as lame. But that was my eleven year old brain for you.

And now? Forget it. If I find cool ass jeans at Wal-Mart for ten bucks, I'm likely to announce this everyone I know. Because hey, a bargain is a bargain! I no longer give a crap about name brands, or even style for that matter. I have my own style. It's called dorky with a splash of tomboy on the side. I do not own heels, nor a dress. I have one skirt that I wear only for interviews, yet believe me, that sucker is off in a flash once I get home. I buy everything cheap, and adore the Dollar Tree. I drive a beat up old Chevy, and not a Volvo. Or a Hummer. Or a Lexus. Or whatever is actually cool these days. I wouldn't know. I stopped giving a shit a long time ago.

And I'm also not just an outcast amongst the 'mom group' of the world. But I am not a normal mom. I'm more of a really cool big sister who sometimes get's pissed at you if you really fuck up, otherwise, I'm pretty chill. I have tattoos and I wear Converse and I really like Taylor Swift a lot. I am prone to sing in the car really loudly, and also dance too. I will chat up the cute boys and girls at the Dutch Bros drive through, because hello, they're fun and cute! And they all love me, despite my son's dismay at their love of my quirky Harry Potter shirts and tattoos, etc. I still feel young, so I act young! And I refuse to be any different. What is a 40 year old supposed to act like? Am I supposed to be doing 40 year old shit? What is that anyway? I don't even have a clue! I spend most of my time with people twenty years younger than me, and I'm perfectly content. If there's a 'getting old' handbook, no one gave me a copy.

Sometimes I feel like this makes a total weirdo in the world, and yet part of me really doesn't give a shit. Because it might have taken me about thirty years or so, but I stopped caring what other people thought. And now I'm just me. Like it or leave it. I won't conform to anyone's ideals or standards. And I find it somewhat difficult to relate to my peers, unless they're just as immature and awkward and strange as me. But most of them aren't. Most of them seem to have mastered this 'growing up' thing. And I feel like I'm a kid masquerading as an adult, as someone's fucking mother! And it feels so goddamn weird. Like who on earth would give me a child and say 'take care of this thing and make sure it grows up good' cause what the hell do I know? I may have been 23 when he was born, but I feel like I know even less about motherhood now than I did then. I'm lost. I've got no clue how to be a parent. And I wonder how everyone else seems to know shit I don't know. Was there a secret meeting somewhere? A class? A right of passage I skipped out on when I was seventeen because I was too busy smoking weed and partying?

Truth is, I have no idea who I am. Or who I'm supposed to be. I just know I don't fit. I am not a sheep. I'm one of a kind. And maybe I screwed it all up, but I'm still me. I never lost sight of that. And maybe I'm gonna be a perpetual teenager until I die? Is there anything really wrong with that? My kid might think so. Someday. So far, he hasn't complained. But maybe when he's all grown up and more responsible than me, he'll care. I don't know. But for now, I'm happy being me. I don't fit the mold. I broke the mold and made a new mold. Is that allowed? If not, oops, broke the rules again. I've been doing that for many years, so why apologize now? All I know is that I'm more sure of myself now than I ever was before. Even if who I am doesn't fit in the world exactly. But maybe someday, someone out there won't fit either? And I'll meet them, and it'll be bliss? So for now, I leave you. I'm an overgrown child trapped in a ridiculously old body. But I refuse to change.