The first stop we made was breakfast at a local diner. The waitress asked what I'd like to drink and I said, "Coffee." It was breakfast, after all, and I do love a good cup of coffee. After much indecision, BubTar settled on the chocolate milk. When our drinks arrived, and I looked down at that ceramic mug, it hit me. I am a grown up.
I have been married for seven years, a parent for six years, and a home owner for four years. I am, and have been, by all accounts (except perhaps age) an adult for quite a while, but somehow this single cup of coffee confirmed it.
I suppose we don't eat breakfast out very often, because we aren't really morning people in this house. I'm sure if we did make a habit of eating breakfast out of the house I'd have passed this particular milestone much earlier, but I hadn't. So here I sat, twenty-five years old, with a cup full of adulthood staring back at me. You see, I don't order coffee at restaurants, PARENTS do that. I order juice or Sprite or hell, even alcohol...but never a mug of coffee.
With each clink of the spoon, each trickling refill, each tearing of a sugar packet, I heard it...the echo of adulthood. Soon, I was distracted from my internal monologue when my son began crawling on the floor under our table and I heard myself say, "No sir. We sit in the booth, not on the floor." It was that sort of reflexive grown-up admonishment that bypasses my brain completely these days and I realized, I've been an adult all along, it just took seeing my reflection in a cup of diner coffee to finally realize it.
26 comments:
How funny! I know exactly what you mean. I still feel like I'm in my parents' house when I get it together enough to make coffee at home in the morning. Adults make coffee at home. I stumble to the counter at the deli half awake.
25 is apparently the age when you grow up...you can rent cars easier and finally can drink coffee in restaurants.
And I know this post is about your coffee and feeling like a real grown up...but I'm still thinking about your omelette. :)
yikes. I am a little too familiar with that "wait, I'm the grown-up" feeling. I was 25 when I had my first baby, and I remember passing a lot of those milestones that year.
I love breakfast out.
eggs, bacon, no toast. but homefries.
Tell Bubtar that next time I am ordering a shake. screw the coffee.
It is amazing to me, my love. You are so remarkably grown up and so incredibly graceful in being so.
Meanwhile, at almost 27, I am still very much a kid--my room is a mess, I'm STILL in school, and if it weren't for last-minute productivity surges I'd never get anything done!
So, uh, different strokes. ^_^
it's funny, isn't it, the things that strike us
I totally get this. I'm way past having had that experience, but I know I had a moment, a "holy shit!" moment that is. I love that you and Bubtar are having breakfast together in a diner, wish E-boy and I could join you!
Yeah, those moments are weird. They keep getting more and more frequent until they're pretty much constant.
I keep wanting to write a post about when I was 25 but I can't remember!
Gosh if ordering coffee at breakfast makes you a grown up then I was a grown up a loooooooong time ago. Way before kids that's for sure. We barely get out for breakfast too(mostly because Todd sleeps in too late) but I think that is my favourite meal to eat out.
I don't remember when my grown up moment was, but I remember hating it. I don't *feel* like a grown up ~ why should I have to be one? But alas, here we are.
I know what you mean! Although I've drunk caffeinated beverages for a while now, it's usually half chocolate or half milk. Only recently have I started actually ordering coffee-coffee (much cheaper..). And I feel like my mom.
Those moments are so weird, arent' they? I STILL have those moments, at a decade older than you. Seriously, I've owned homes and had my own pets for 13 years, been married for 11, been a professional for 9 years, and been a parent for 4 years, and it still hits me now and then. Woah, I'm an adult!
Oh, I'm still 17 in my head...
Ah, I know how you feel. My grown-up identity is almost full-time now, which makes me feel a bit woozy to even think about.
you crack me up. I feel the same way...I never realize I am an adult until I sit back and view myself as an outsider. Although, I still can't drink a plain ole' cup'a joe. You really ARE old. Just kiddin'! I have a good couple years on you! ;)
You know that famous T S Eliot poem, "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? It has a line in it much like waht you're describing: "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons."
What an interesting post. God, I'm totally going through that too, only because I was a student all through my entire twenties and only grew up in my 30s, it's all hitting me RIGHT NOW.
Look! We're peers!
i am always so taken aback when i am reminded of it myself.
I know what you mean--perfectly. It hits me now and again and really makes me do a double take!
oh you had me at the dinner. My heart is mush. What a lovely date. Even if my jaw is hanging slackjawed at realising that you were married at eighteen and had two kids younger than I was when I met my husband.
Am I ever feeling old. very old. If you could cut it out with the ruminating about the oldness of twentyfive it would be much appreciated.
My husband is now laughing at me because I am so old I just asked him how old I am and was off by a year. '73. We weren't even born in the same decade kyla. how the heck did you get to be so wise?
Canine son, daughter who flips you off and a birthday. I'm caught up again (was off dealing with Dad stuff last week.)
All is well again? KayTar is back to KayTar normal?
You are such an anomaly. You are wise beyond your years, yet you can still pass for a teenager. :)
You sure had a handsome breakfast date. Lucky mama.
i loved this, Kyla. i was in my thirties before i started drinking coffee...and sometimes i wish i could go back to chocolate milk. but it just doesn't do it anymore. ;)
i like your canine breakfast companion.
I know what you mean. And I can't remember when that moment came, but it did, it crept in one day.
Nicely written. I hear you. I didn't even drink coffee until after I had kids. And then somehow my body realized it needed it.
Hysterical! Odd how some things just sort of "Catch" us. I saw my early morning reflection one day and knew that I was on the far side of middle age!!
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