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Why are there so many songs about rainbows? I know why. Because rainbows are visions, but only illusions. No, it's true. It's just like the song says. Rainbows are really real. I know, because I see them all the time. But have you ever actually experienced a rainbow with any of your other senses? Can you touch a rainbow? Can you hold it in your hands? What does a rainbow smell like? Is it salty?
Grown ups are kind of like this. When I was a child, I knew what a grown-up was. A grown-up was a person who has finished growing. A grown-up was tall and wears big socks. A grown-up lived in their own house and paid bills, bought gas, and cooked dinner. Grown-ups had jobs and were always complaining about the president.
Not only that, but I also knew they really existed. I saw them all the time. They were in my house taking care of my brother and I, and they were at the grocery store talking to my dad about the price of milk going up. I knew that I would be a grown-up someday as well and that I would be just as enraged at the price of milk.
Well, here I am. I'm thirty-three years old (yep, you read that right. That's my real age). I have my own house and I pay my own bills. I even have my own children. My socks are the second-biggest in the house. I buy gas, and I cook dinner, and I complain about the president.
And I have to say, I am outraged at the price of milk. $4.15? For real, people.
So why don't I feel like a grown-up? Grown-ups hate the price of milk, I hate the price of milk. Grown-ups are in their 30's, I'm in my 30's. I should feel like an adult by now, but I don't. I don't feel like a child, either, though. I just feel like... well, I just feel like Valorie. I feel like an enhanced Valorie with kids and a morgage, but Valorie just the same.
After my car accident, we had the use of a sweet rental car: a Ford Focus! It was this year's model, even. It was bigger than the kinds of cars I'm used to driving. It was roomy in the back for the kids, had a moon roof for when I needed to keep cool and be cool, good gas mileage, and a place to plug in my iPod so we could rock out to Raffi!
"This is a great car!" I exclaimed to Marc when I picked him up from school. "I totally feel like a grown-up driving this thing."
"Mom," he said. "You ARE a grown-up."
I thought about it for a minute. That's how he sees me. He sees me as a grown-up. He probably has the same criteria as I did when I was nine.
"No I'm not," I said as I turned the radio up, opened the moon roof, and pumped my fist through the ceiling into the air. Marc and I rocked out in our grown-up Focus the whole way home.
Grown-ups are kind of like rainbows. You know they're there. They're really real. You see them all the time when you're a child, and it seems like you spend years chasing after your grown-up self. I can't help but wonder how many people spend years trying to be that grown-up they thought they were supposed to be. It's way more fun rockin' out in a rental car, I think.
Maybe milk prices shouldn't get me down so much. I can still pay my bills, listen to Raffi, and have a good time doing it all. I don't think grown-ups exist outside the realm of childhood perception, anyway. Now that I'm here, grown-up seems like a strange illusion.
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