Quote of the Day: As for Grown-ups...

"I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they are doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world."

 Lettie Hempstock*

~ Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane

* Or is she one of the faces of the Triple Goddesses?

No Place Like Home - Part 2 of many

Note: Today's blog post was actually first written in July, but I wasn't allowed to post it until earlier this month. Then I delayed posting it this month for one reason or another. In fact, I seriously rethought posting it at all. After much thought, I decided I needed to put it out there into the Blogophere. If this is a loose record of my life, then I need to stop censoring myself or caring about possible feedback. This is a certain way I was feeling back in July 2010 after some news was broken to me. By now I'm at a different place emotionally, but more on that later.

When does your childhood really end?

For some people it is over when they leave the nest, go to college, or get their own place. For others, it may end when they marry and become parents themselves.

For all that we become grownups, moving out, starting lives and/or families of our own, I believe that there’s still a part of you that hangs on to your childhood, maintaining a connection to the past beyond family relations – a link to a place, just as much as people. A place to go for comfort and security, a refuge to go in case of emergencies, where you go for the holidays -- that place called your childhood home.

But what happens when you can’t go “home” again? If one day, sometimes without warning, the bond has to be broken.

Your connection to the building you grew up in evolves, just like you. The color of the walls may change. The landscaping may change. Furniture and décor may be replaced or modernized. Remodeling may take place, but the essence -- the hominess is still there.

You may leave for college, and your childhood bedroom may be changed into a guest room or an office. However, you could still come home for vacations or holidays and have a place to stay. You may move to another apartment, and need to store your stuff in the family basement or garage. The neighborhood could change for good or bad, the town could seem more or less urbane/rural than you remembered, but you could still come “home” and feel a connection, in your familiar, safe haven.

Until…

Until it’s stripped of the essence of you and your family, boxes packed, painting neutralized, the rooms left bare, or worse, the house sold to another family. Then it’s not YOUR home any more. Doesn’t that mean that last link to your childhood is completely irrevocably broken?

It’s like losing an anchor. It leaves you adrift. Unmoored.

If “Home is where the heart is,” where is your heart when your anchor is uprooted?

What then?

Icy Ironies

Sometimes being a responsible adult seriously has its downsides.

I had to go to work today. I could have taken a personal day, but ... I need those for other things.

The ironies have begun to accumulate, along with the snow.

The sidewalks in town clear while the train platforms weren't. It's usually the other way around.

The trains were running 20-30 minutes late and not a seat could be found. All of us unfortunate enough to have to go to work were packed in like sardines. There aren't enough seats on a good day, and the MTA wants to increase fares by up to 30%. I wouldn't complain so much if I could get a seat occasionally, or some guys were paid to do some snow removal on the platforms. Heck ... I know that there are former investment bankers from our area who need the work. Pay them to shovel.

What really gets me is that for the first time in more than five years, the New York City Public Schools were closed, not to mention The New School closed, as well as some of the Lincoln Center constituents. If I still worked in Westchester at the other place and had to drive, I could have worked from home. If I worked at the library, I would have had a snow day. While I love the Big J, the ONLY reason it was open today was because it is audition week. We finally got this e-mail at lunchtime:

"Due to the continuing snow conditions, staff members who have a difficult commute and are not required to be here as part of the admissions process can leave at 3:00 pm today."

MMM. Difficult commute ... kind of. Not essential for admissions ... definitely.

My boss said that if I could get up and leave at 3:00 p.m. with a guilt free conscience and a straight face I was welcome to leave.

Hello? I'm out the door at 3:01. I'll take any part of early dismissal I can get!

UPDATE: So ... it was closer to 4:01, but still it's better than 5:00!

Another reason being a grownup really sucks?

No early dismissals for snow, be it a snow shower, a snow flurry, or a over-hyped snow storm.

Also: People looking at you as if you are strange if you want to go out and play in the snow -- in your business suit in the middle of a work day. What's wrong with letting your inner child out occassionally? Mine is 8.

So -- instead of that, I have to go to a staff meeting. BUMMER.

I will have to do arts-and-crafts therapy later instead aka making paper snowflakes for my door.

For a refresher on how to do this, I recommend this link: http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html