Don't Grow Up

After a reasonably productive weekend, I suddenly found myself struggling to write anything. I've got a list of things and an already started draft, but nothing was really shouting 'Write about me!', so I drank tea, nursed my cold, cuddled up with my dog and joined in a linky, as you do.

When I got back from work, I was still stumped. I am blaming the cold, painful sinuses are not conducive to creativity, or so it would appear. However, after a second dose of Sudafed and a dog walk (during a brief period of sunshine on an otherwise cold, wet and windy day), I was starting to feel much better. There were even a few new ideas floating about in the empty space between my ears where, pre-children a brain had resided.

My brain, full of love, but not much else

Anyway, having completed my grown ups responsibilities for the day, I sat down with the intention of writing about raising a teen and the 'fun' that goes with it, but that's not what I am writing about anymore, at least not this time. I will do, but now I want to write about me and maybe you too, because I don't know about you, but some days, I don't want to be an adult! There I've said it, my inner child has been released.

Just think of all those things you did as a child that you don't do now. Getting home from school, not having to worry about cooking dinner, or washing and ironing. No packed lunch to make, or vacuuming to do, nope off you went on your bike to play CHiP's with your best mate (I had a police siren on my bike - yes I was a bit of a tomboy) and then sit in front of the TV watching Battlestar Galactica. Okay, I know some of you have no idea what I'm talking about here, but remember I was a child of the '70's. I'm not entirely sure how we survived, most of our clothing was polyester and static electric shocks were the norm, so there was a good chance we could have spontaneously combusted at any time, but thankfully we didn't.

The long summer holidays, playing with friends, picking rose petals and putting them in water in the hope we would somehow end up with a beautiful smelling homemade perfume. We never managed to produce anything, but dirty looking water that certainly didn't smell of roses, but it didn't stop us from trying every year.

And being allowed to be unwell. If I were still a little person (that is age not height, so far as that goes, I am most certainly vertically challenged and, therefore, still little) I would have been able to spend the day snuggled up in bed with someone to look after me. When you're grown up, you have to carry on, unless you're really poorly, then you might relent and take the day off from your paid work, but you are not going to get a day off from parenting.

No, being an adult is not all it's cracked up to be. For a start, I was convinced I was going to marry David Cassidy (actor and singer from the 1970's), well that didn't happen and what's more he didn't even have the decency to remain young and wait for me to catch up! Oh well, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Then of course there was my career choice. From the age of three, I wanted to be a ballerina, in spite of almost 15 years of ballet classes, I started work and had to hang up those ballet shoes. Hence, I am not a member of the Royal Ballet, but still have ugly dancer's feet.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a Mum and I'm happier in my forties than I ever have been, but I miss the freedom of being young. I remember thinking that work had to be so much easier than school! Why on earth did I think that, nothing could be further from the truth. My first job, in a bank was not 9 - 5 as I thought it would be; we often didn't leave until 7.30pm, which was a huge shock after school. It was also the reason I gave up my ballet classes, as I just couldn't get there on time, if at all.

As a teenager at school, I was out every weekend going to the cinema with my best friends; as an adult I'm lucky if I get to the cinema once every couple of weeks. If I'd told my teenage self that I would spend most of my working like doing long hours in an office environment and would stay in most weekends too knackered to go out, she would probably have rolled her eyes at me and told me to get a life. If I'd told her that I wouldn't want my life any other way, she would think I was totally bonkers crazy (which in fairness, I am).

Would I trade my life now for the one I had in the 70's and 80's? No not really. Would I like to say 'stuff it' to the world and act like a child every now and again? Yes, yes I would, and you know, what, I might just do it. So, if you see a mad woman skipping down the street with a little orange dog in tow, that will most likely be me!

Oh, and in case you were wondering what I was like as a teen, here's my younger self back in 1987.