When I was a lad, I wanted to be weird things. All kids around me said,
"When I grow up, I want to be a bride!!"
"I want to be nurse!!"
and I never got the tingles of fancy for these typical answers. Nurses aside, I was scoffing at little girls holding their hands in front of their flat chests, dreaming about just (JUST!) getting married; and I was only 6 then.
I wanted to be a comedian. Not stand-up kinds, but traditional kind which takes years to train. It's not important what it is I wanted to be. What is important is that I always wanted to be something weird.
I guess everyone, I mean everyone, kind of holds ideas of being grown-ups one day. Like,
"Being a grown-up is having breasts and wearing high-heels and planning wedding."
or
"Being a grown-up is smoking cigars and sway a brandy glass and talk about ladies without giggling."
or something like that.
My idea of grown-up was, for some reason, somebody who does all the things I couldn't / wouldn't do.
This is not the wholesome description of my idea of grown-up, but it was something like this.
I guess being a grown-up is like;
eating dried or smoked fish / eating cheese / drinking whisky / drinking wine / reciting Bierce / reading The Times / singing karaoke / singing Sinatra / enjoys mountain walking / and likes everything dull.
I know, some of them are plain stupid, just kid's ideas of unknown reality. But they are basically the things I couldn't possibly understand how and why adult seemed to like and enjoy doing.
I must have ruminated these elements of adult activities over and over while growing up. I must have tested myself every time I faced smoked fish, daring myself to eat and enjoy it, just to see if I was grown up. (I guess I was very self disciplined kid.) And each time I see youngsters with inappropriately old stuff (like 16 yrs old drinking Guinness,) always fantasized them daring themselves like I did, to test themselves to be adults.
And note that I only picked things everyone likes except me. (I don't know anyone who doesn't like eating cheese at all, or doesn't understand Bierce.)
Along the way, I did conquer few things. I hated drinking wine, but now I am addicted. Smoked fish made me sick before but now I love them enough to marry. And each time I feel older, and wonder what the next step would be. Wine is actually the most recent conquering. I still cannot believe that I can empty a bottle in one night and do enjoy it. And I can't help but to think if the next one is singing My Way on karaoke, or drinking scotch on rocks, because if I could drink wine, anything is totally possible. I can go skating to work. You never know.
