Maturity (PM)

I guess maturity and feeling like a grown up are two different things. There are some things in my life that really make me feel like I'm a grown up, but not necessarily mature. When I was about 24 I got my own credit card and the first thing I bought with it was a top and when I signed for it I felt really grown up because that was what my parents always did when I was a kid. Bought things with a credit card and signed their names to authorise the purchase. I never used my pin for my credit card, always signed, for that reason of feeling like a grown up. Now you aren't even allowed to sign for a credit card purchase any more. Back to childhood for me! Just jokes, there are other things that make me feel like a grown up. Getting the paper delivered on the weekend is one of them. When I go out to get the paper in the morning it feels like such a great grown up way to start the day. Getting annoyed at Baby for stupid reasons is another thing that makes me feel like an adult, but only in the worst way. Having a dishwasher makes me feel grown up in the best way.

But that is not maturity. I guess some things make me feel mature. Like right now I am on leave without pay from work, which has the defining factor of not supplying me with any income. This, in turn, means I have no money and I feel really mature because I haven't bought any clothes lately and I don't even really have the urge. Except my friend L-bomb has these really hot kicks that I want to buy yet I am resisting that desire and I feel really mature about it.*

I would not have felt mature sitting in a wet tram seat though and being overcome by indecision about what to do. That seems like a classic childhood horror, being in some mildly embarrassing situation but not wanting to change the situation in case it creates a more embarrassing situation. Classic immaturity. But if you think about it, what was getting up going to achieve, K was already wet on the back of her legs, getting up wasn't going to change that. Perhaps she had the maturity to realise nothing was really going to improve the situation. Ipso facto she is a mature woman. WIN!

*I just found out they are now on sale, would buying them make me mature because I was responsible and bought them at a discount price?

Maturity (AM)

Sometimes I take note of something I am doing and pause for a moment to think wow, I am becoming really mature. I have these insights when I'm doing things like tidying the house, or putting the bins out or otherwise being 'responsible'. I had a really big one the other day when I took the pile of stuff I had left on the stairs 'to take up later', up the stairs. I've been stepping over piles like that my whole life.  My mum would always say, when I was little and my stair-pile leaving days had just begun, "it's probably easier to pick the stuff up and take it with you than climb over it". Well, I'm finally in a position to say no, Mum, it's not easier. But that doesn't matter, now that I've realised that in the long run it's probably better to take the stuff up and put it away and be done with it. Which is to say, now that I've matured. 

I feel pretty good about myself when these things happen but then something else will happen that makes me wonder whether I really have matured, or whether the maturity I've developed is helping much. I wait until Appleheart has gone outside to water the garden, or is doing something that will keep him out of the kitchen for a decent stretch before a take a teaspoon to the peanut butter/Nutino. Is that a sign of maturity? I don't think so. 

I've got a lot of examples of things like that. And from the maturity...what is it good for? files, here's something that happened the other day on the #86. 

I boarded it near home and it was pretty excited to see that there was a single seat available. I squeezed into it without a  second thought and then realised when I felt something wet against the back of my legs that something was wrong with this seat and everyone knew it. A lot of thoughts ran through my head. 

What is this gross thing I'm sitting in? Vomit? Wee? Something more gross? 

How badly soiled are my stockings? If I stand up and leave the seat, will all these fellow passengers who wisely avoided the seat think that I am an idiot, and see the stain on my stockings like some kind of scarlett letter? 

Those are just some of the thoughts. I was basically paralysed by indecision and ended up staying in the seat for the whole ride. One could argue I stayed in the seat because I ruled out a bunch of the grossest possibilities. It didn't smell like vomit or wee or anything grosser. My stockings just looked a bit wet, not discoloured or anything, but not completely clean either. It was restricted to my calves, not the part of the seat my bum was on. One could argue that, but one would be wrong. It was the indecision. Maturity offered me no solution. Except to allow me to basically forget all about it about 2 minutes after I sat down. That's something.