Sometimes, despite the size of my breasts, I am fairly certain that I look a young girl of fifteen. Apparently there are those who agree.
There are other moments when I feel quite adult, walking along determinedly in my harshly happy way, ignoring the poor Greenpeace tablers, the homeless, and that man trying to give away tickets for a free screening of Mamma Mia.
Then I get home and realize: wait, maybe I really did want to watch Mamma Mia! At least, if it’s gonna be free. (Although I don’t see how a film/musical could make better use of ABBA than Muriel’s Wedding did.) And I kick myself for not stopping only because I thought that it’s not what a real person would do. Just let yourself like musical theatre-cum-movie, and accept a deal where you wait in line for two hours with pushy suckers who end up spending $10 on popcorn anyway! (But thankfully, not).
There is much touted point in everyone’s young adulthood when you finally realize that your parents are really just people, and it’s kind of shocking and sad. I don’t know that I ever really idealized my parents to begin with, but surely at one point I did think them somehow special.
Still, I think for quite a while after that shattering of parental perfection, the illusion of almighty ADULTHOOD is maintained. It is assumed that at some moment, generally post-college (as the years progress, we seem to push back this point further and further from where we are standing), our age will grant us passage – willfully or not- into some secret society of real people with different rules about what one can and should do.
What is so startling about realizing that this is not that we are still merely overgrown children, but that EVERYONE ELSE IS, TOO.
Indeed, as we age, we get nothing but more insane and eccentric, and to top it off, less inclined (or perhaps merely less able) to hide it. Mostly, I am continuously shocked by how HUMAN people are.
For example, I had a back and forth of at least ten, uncertain emails, and four timid meetings with Cybelle, cat lady. She is a thirty-something with a real job and real life and real apartment (and thankfully, a real boyfriend- it’s the only thing saving her from being a sad spinoff of a Cathy comic). But she’s also ust as nerdy and awkward as I! I don’t know why I thought it would be anything different, really. Why do we expect grownups to somehow be superhuman? After all, they are the ones with leather and foot fetishes; mommy issues discussed ad nauseum with overpriced psychotherapists; embarrassingly overdue credit card bills; untrimmed body hair; and broken dreams.
They are, in fact, much more vulnerable and imperfect than youth, because they can no longer hide things with drum-tight skin, and their hesitancy is no longer veiled by the charm of adolescence. No wonder so many people end up getting a divorce. Or killing themselves.
Anyway, all this has really taught me about myself, for the moment, is that my giant boobs do not make me more of an adult, but rather, more of a child. They are cartoonish, and still perky enough (though not very) to make me a symbol of the flourish of youth. And that’s as good as it’s going to get, because in a few years when they hit the floor, I will merely be a sad old spinster with useless tits.
