Inside Gigi's World

My son is at the end of his Freshmen year.

I recently, have found myself scratching my head, like how the hell did this happen?

I warn him how fast these next 3 years will go by because they will and he looks at me the same way I used to look at any “old person” who used to try to tell me the same thing.

At 15 you think you’ll be a kid forever. You’re untouchable, nothing can touch you. You’re stuck in that limbo of feeling like you’re grown and that you know everything but then you still need to ask your Mom for permission to go to your friend’s house and your Dad to drive you there still.

You want to hurry up and get to work so you have your own money and independence and it is new and exciting! You haven’t begun to realize that minimum wage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you have to put up with shitty customers who treat the dumb high school kids like shit or that you will work more of your adult life then you will do almost anything else and that once you hit your late 30s or 40s you will start to dream about all the things you’ll do once you retire.

You’re usually at that most delusional part of your life where you think you’ll be able to take on the world and mold it into everything you believe it should be, taking all the necessary steps, making it all yours.

It’s the age when you want to listen to loud music and eat pizza for three meals a day, stay up until 2 in the morning and sleeping until noon.

But all of a sudden the world and everyone in it starts to treat you in a strange way…..

You’re in high school now, damnit! You’re young enough to be treated like a child but old enough where some people think you should be “responsible ” and have your whole life figured out. How thoughtful of these people considering most of their lives could have turned out to be an “After School Special”, as a cautionary tale of all the shit you shouldn’t do in high school….

Recently I have found myself sounding more and more like these adults with all of this “sound” advice. What the 15 year old should do, what he shouldn’t do.

“What are you going to do once you get out of high school?”

Mixed in with…..

“Can’t you just pick up your God damn dirty laundry off of the God damn bathroom floor?!?! The basket is literally right there!!!!”

And now, as I find myself asking him questions about his future and adulthood, I find myself now asking those same questions to my inner domesticated goddess.

At 15, I thought for sure I had this world figured out.

At 17, after I was handed my diploma, I was ready to go out into this world to show everyone that I had most certainly figured everything about life out.

After I had to start paying for my own health insurance, I was ready to turn back the hands of time and be 15 all over again.

And once I was in my 20s and became a Mom, I quickly and simply, all at once, realized I had no idea what I was doing and 15 year old me was much smarter and confident than 20 something me was.

I’m in my 30s now. I do not profess to be so knowledgeable now. I actually think I know less. Once I get a little bit of footing and I find myself a little more settled, the Earth moves under my feet and rattles my whole world a little more. The only difference between then and now, I make sure I wear my helmet, that way it helps lessen the blows a little.

I haven’t started asking myself the same thing I have been asking R.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

What do I do when the kids are all grown up?

Let’s face it, it just seemed like yesterday we were bringing R. home and here he is in high school.

And let’s be honest, J. isn’t far behind. Before I know it, she’ll be in high school too.

I’m on the brink of being a mom that is needed for everything and a mom that’s not needed at all.

I’ve been so completely engulfed in losing myself to motherhood and the needs of others that I forgot for a minute that I used to be my own person.

I used to be the little girl that dreamed of setting the world on fire and holding it in my hands while it turned to ashes. The little girl that dreamed of big city lights at night time when the snow fell and sun bathing under the hot Australian sky, lying on a beach while waiting to swim in the ocean with sharks. Photographing and Journaling all of my adventures and traveling to unseen places with a bank account that just magically replenished itself daily.

Instead I got a small town in New England that’s too hot for 6 months of the year and too cold for the other. And Instead of lying on an Australian beach, I have a recliner and a soft fuzzy blanket.

Both are nice, don’t get me wrong. I love my life. But when do you stop putting your life on hold, living for others and start living for yourself?

We only have one life, why do we wait to start living? Why do we wait for all of there milestones and life events to decide that we will incite change in ourselves? We literally start living the day we are born but we also start dying in the same breath. An expiration date invisibly stamped on the bottom of our foot, predetermined before we even enter this world.

Why wait until 16? 18? 21? After graduation? After marriage? After kids? After retirement?

Before you know it, your luckily over 3 decades in and before you know it, 3 more decades will have come and gone.

I’ve decided it’s time for me to do something for myself. Now truth be told I say this all the time but it’s time to stop talking and time to start doing.

I do know what I want to be when I grow up and it is more than just being alive.

What is it you ask? Very simple, none of your business right now. I’ll tell you eventually, when the time is right. When I’m ready. Just because I’m not telling you right now doesn’t me I’m not living yet. It just means right now I’m taking it one day at a time….