Topic 70: On Growing Up

Carol:

Writes of Passage

I have a fairly substantial collection of books signed by their authors. Sometimes, it is a fluke, like when I bought a used mystery novel by Tony Hillerman and found his signature inside.  Sometimes I wait in lines at literary readings to gather an autograph for a gift book. I also like to write in books myself to show know why I chose that gift especially for them. When I receive a gift book, I always look right away at the inside front page to see if there’s a message for me.  I am sentimental that way.
 

Bismarck, North Dakota:   The date on The Tale of Tom Kitten is June 6, 1953 the day before my 5th birthday, so I must have had a birthday party that day.  I can only read part of the dedication from Susan, who is now in her sixties. We only lived in North Dakota for eight months before my father got transferred to California, so I don’t remember Susan and we were too young to become pen pals. But, I have kept the book through all the transfers and travels and would never think of giving it away.
 

Los Angeles, California: I wrote my own name in Carolyn Ten Eyck Appleton’s Cocky Cactus, which was probably another birthday present around 1955. I couldn’t print well enough to fit my crayoned name in the little cartoon on the first page  that said  “This book belongs to…”  I wrote my name in a lot of books to show the world they were mine.  But, most of my favorite books weren’t mine; they belonged to my brothers: Holling C. Holling’s The Book of Indians (1935). Paddle to the Sea (1941) and Tree in the Trail (1942), and an old copy of Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Doolittle.  Sometimes I just scribbled out the names “Hugh” or “Doug” that were already written inside the books, replacing them with Carol Scott, or sometimes I would just pick another page to write on.  I had quite a tug-of-war with myself as an adult when I looked more carefully at the children’s books I had been lugging from place to place and admitted my theft. I returned them all to my brothers, but I still miss the little canoe from Paddle to the Sea.
 

New Haven, Connecticut:  August 25, 1973 my wedding day, the planning of which had been tricky as my mother on the west coast and I on the east coast tried to coordinate the cake, the music, the bridesmaid dresses, the menu. It was a family event: my big brothers whose books I stole as a kid were ushers along with Marc’s brother, my 5 nieces were junior bridesmaids, and Marc’s   sister from Massachusetts was a bridesmaid.  Hugh, a pilot for a commercial airline, was flying the Hawaii route, so he joined us on our honeymoon one evening for dinner.  His gift of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet seemed like a symbol to me that he knew his baby sister was all grown up, kind of a turning point in our relationship.
 

Prescott, Arizona:  On April 28, 1991 I wrote in the front of a beautiful book illustrating the words of St. Francis of Assisi’s “Hymn [Canticle] of the Sun.”  I was weeping a bit  while the rest of the family was dressing for Church and the ceremony of First Communion. There wasn’t any sentiment in the message I wrote, however,   just our  names and dates to mark another rite of passage.  What I really felt like saying was, “Dear Megan, stay my little girl. I’m not ready for you to grow up.” 
 

Practical people have told me not to write inside books. Hurts the resale value, makes it hard to exchange a book for one more interesting or useful. I prefer the personal touch of a date, a signature and a special message. I am sentimental that way.

Megan:

What do I know about growing up? I live with my parents and I spend all my time going to movies, or coffee shops or hanging out in the shed. Washing my hair is a chore, I fantasize about shaving my head but I am afraid I might have a misshapen skull.  It feels bumpy under my finger tips. These are the thoughts of the comfortably unemployed.

Sometimes  I get an urgent feeling. I think I must grow up and I must do it now. Soon. I have, in the past, believed that I had grown up. Certain events, as they occurred, I thought “This is it. I am now a grown up.” Getting my Master’s Degree, moving alone to England (3 times!),  taking the job in the prison, taking out a loan and buying a car with no parental input …  setting up a house: buying dishes, a vacuum (two actually – the first one didn’t suck) an iron, a kettle, a wok, automatic payment via the Internet of bills for phone, water and taxes, but not electricity.

I often forgot to prepay for electricity and then the power would go off, usually while I was in the shower and I would have to bundle up for the cold with shampoo in my hair and eyes, dripping out of my flat to hit the emergency credit button on the box.

And then, in the middle of The Great Recession, I willingly gave up a guaranteed government job, sold my car and got rid of my household items (I left the iron in a pub, with a sign “Free Iron – Never Used”). I packed four years of my life into two suitcases (the excess weight fee at the airport took a third of my final paycheck), and moved back into my childhood bedroom with the expectation that I’d find a new job within a month of two, after I recovered from the “ordeal” of having spent 4 years in a prison in a foreign country – accepting (fearing) that the only thing that may ever make me interesting is behind me, finished, and tell me – how can these be the thoughts of a grown up?



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For another point of view on this topic, please see Allie Brosh's This is Why I'll Never Be an Adult at Hyperbole and a Half (which is where I got the idea to add cartoons to these essays).