Adult Steps

While baby steps happen every day, every now and again something big happens and it can scare me just as much as the baby steps.

Recently, my biggest step was buying my first house. It was strange to me, because, this was a dream I had had since I was in high school. I attribute my eagerness and preoccupation with home owning to my part-time job at Home Depot during high school, but really I also think I am, what my mother calls, a 'nester' at heart. So while others at 18 looked forward to 21 as a legal drinking age, I looked forward to turning 21 as a time that I would be out of college and holding down a 'real job,' able to buy a home.

Of course things didn't work out as smoothly as expected- this 'real job' isn't so lucrative and undergraduate degrees require more these days, not to mention the house-buying-process nightmare that HGTV and TLC seem to mask so seamlessly. Regardless, I was able to be frugal enough all throughout my years to stash away money knowing this dream was in the back of my mind and when the economy took a downturn and the 1st-time home buyers tax credit came out, it seemed like my prayers had been answered.

After more than a year of looking, offering, bartering and walking in and out of housing deals we finally found the home perfect for our current situation. I should have been ecstatic right? Not so much. All of a sudden a huge panic began to set in. What happens if we lose our jobs? What if after we close we find out something terribly wrong? I'm so far from my family(30minutes HA!)-will this have a negative impact on our relationships? Am I ready for this responsibility? As luck would have it, I actually ended up having a huge meltdown the day after we moved in and sat on the couch screaming 'take it back, I don't want this, I want to go home!' God bless my boyfriend for being so patient.

In the end I realized that it wasn't that I didn't like the house, didn't want the house or didn't have the ability to accept the responsibility-the simple fact that this brought me so much closer to being an adult freaked me out completely. It was like all of a sudden I was in those adult shoes but my mind was not ready to accept that I was an adult and so I had an "I-want-my-mommy" moment (who would have thought I would still have those at 23?) . Big steps can hit those of us living dans le flou like a ton of bricks, sometimes even when we really want something. It could be a job that requires moving, your first large adult purchase, a new step in a relationship...anything that forces us faster into the adult world and leaves us wondering how we got from there (childhood) to here (adulthood). I have found the best thing I can do it try to be more 'present.' Cheesy? Totally. But remembering to hold on to each day, live in the moment and consciously see what I can learn from each day can lessen the shock. At least I hope it does...I hope the next 'Big Step'