Sometimes Maturity Never Happens

This conversation was between my daughter, who now works for the agency, and one of the old ladies she takes care of. This lady is 97. Paranoid, depressed and delusional are some of the words that could be use to describe her. Funny, hilarious, hysterical are some others. For the most part she is very with it, very on the ball make no mistake about it. The Mrs: Are you an adult yet? Me: Well, I am 27, so I guess I should be, but no, I wouldn't consider myself an adult. The Mrs: Yeah, I never got there either.  My daughter thought this was hysterical and so had to share. No matter how old you are maturity is always a state of mind and nothing else. My daughter afterwards asked me if I considered myself an adult. It was hard to answer. I said "no not now" and then proceeded to tell her that when she and her brother and sister were little I was an adult. I had to be. Someone had to be responsible for feeding their little tummys, giving them baths, dressing them, playing with them, driving them everywhere. When they were little I was an adult but as they finished college I was able to revert back to my immature ways. Immature ways yes but waaaay wiser. I love not being an adult anymore. I get to have all sorts of stupid fun because the only consequences are to my self. I've already decided what I'm going to let bother me so now I get to do all sorts of dumb stuff. For instance, my husband and I went to his 40th boarding school reunion. I was the only wife that showed up. Ok I can live with that, I had my reasons for being there. After dinner our whole table got up to have a picture taken but I stayed behind. It was a class picture, one that I was not expected to be in. Someone gave me the dessert bowl full of strawberries with whipped cream and a plate full of shortcakes, all meant for the table. Well, mindlessly enough, I ate the whole bowl of strawberries.... the whole bowl, whipped cream and all. I was just waiting for them to return from taking their picture, started picking at the bowl and soon enough it was empty. Everyone was sooo mad at me. Oh well. I'll do better next time. You can't be an adult and do something like that. So "no" my darling, mom is not an adult any longer. There are moments however when I have to go into "adult" mode. Sometimes you just have to. So now I know that I can get there when I need to, that's enough for me.