Baby Steps

May. 30th, 2011 05:38 pm
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Over the long weekend I got a Costco membership.  That sparked a pretty interesting feeling in me that I hadn't counted on.  The household had been talking about it for a while, as Byron and CD were the only ones with membership.  CD is usually out and about with her friends during the days and of course Byron's at work all day.  That had limited us to going to Costco only on weekends, which clashes with us being able to have more family time, and it's usually busier too.  With me being part of a membership (Byron and I share the account) Sam and I can go do the grocery shopping during the week while others are out or unavailable.  Just recently we brought it out as a possibility to do any time soon, and when we went this weekend we decided to go for it.  The accounts were up for renewal in June anyway.

After I got the card made up and everything, I noted it to Sam later.  In an odd way this had felt sort of like another rite of passage into adulthood.  There are a lot of ideas floating around that (here in America especially) there are little if any real rites of passage into the various phases of growing up.  A 6th grade graduation, high school graduation, puberty, drivers' license, legal drinking age, those are recognized by a lot of people; but even I agree that there ought to be more of a showing for things like that.  With that thought in mind I surprised myself when I looked at my membership card and had that hard-to-describe feeling of, "I'm not a kid anymore."  Considering all the things that I've gone through on my own, with the household, and in spite of the household, there are apparently still enough little inklings of childhood left that I'm caught off guard occasionally.  

My reasoning behind getting that feeling with this particular event is that I have correlated it with a parental role.  It's the parents ("old people") who go out and do the grocery shopping.  Of course when I was younger I bought things at Albertson's and Wal-Mart in Clarksville (I remember all too well, I confused cucumbers for zucchini and couldn't find the corn because it was still wrapped in it's husk).  I bought things for our household there occasionally, but mostly for myself in the form of snacks and such.  When I moved here to Albuquerque I went out grocery shopping more and more.  I had become a part of the process instead of a bystander.  I was asked what I wanted/ needed and people listened.  We were a household after all.  Sometimes it would be just me and Sam or me and Byron, or even just me.  I'm on my way home from school (or work) and need to stop off at the grocery store to grab milk and eggs from Smith's.  That's fine.  I did have a better sense of autonomy that way, meaning I felt more like I was "on my own" in a not-dependent-on-parents sort of way, but that wasn't the same as this feeling at Costco.

I think that what the significance of that was, was that it seemed a little more official.  I could touch and feel and see this physical memento.  I had the Costco card to look at.  That sense of official-ness really stuck to it.  There wasn't any denying it now, I was a person who goes out and gathers groceries for a household, I'm not just the recipient anymore, and this card is PROOF.  I'm not completely sure if that makes me materialistic or what have you, but it makes me think of other cultures.  When girls become women a dowry is set up and they have those "things" as a constant reminder that they are now women and eligible for marriage.  In some cultures men might have a purposeful scar to look at and remind them, their PROOF that they had undergone an important physical and social change.  I think the reason that wasn't there for me with the drivers' license was because I used it for fun.  It was still childish.  I went to the movies, I went to work (which provided funding for movies, not for rent), I went to friends' homes, I visited girlfriends, and so on.  There wasn't a sense of obligation or real meaning to it.  In that sense, this Costco card is different.  It's purposeful for the sake of not just myself, but others who rely on me for it (not to make too much of it or anything).

Because the transition into college (even though it was a little more rocky for me) was so smooth from high school, this matters a bit more.  The life I've been living the last four years has been the life of an adult, in the sense that that's what was accepted.  While I talked to Sam about it she brought up that when I got here she and the household accepted me here as an adult (even at seventeen).  They weren't adopting a kid (or teen even).  That last sentence is my words, not hers.  Despite all that, though, I've basically still been devoted to going to school.  I could have had more of an adult feel to my last four years if I had upheld my wedding vows like a responsible and honest adult would have, but that wasn't the case.  I had still been acting toward that same mindset I had in Clarksville before I came.  With the exception of actually using the opportunity to grow, there hadn't been much of a difference in my eyes.  That's not to say I didn't recognize the obvious difference of age and legal rights.  

Thinking about the title for this entry, I feel like at this point in my life, and in this society, those measures of adulthood are measured in baby steps.  It's getting a membership to a bulk shopping store.  It's not being petty for the first time in a fight with your wife or girlfriend, it's suddenly caring about fiscal conservatism ( :P ), all those little things for which there is no fanfare.  No tribal rituals or ceremonies or trumpets, but at least it's something I can respect and be aware of.
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