The "Big" Scenario

Who hasn’t seen Tom Hank’s classic film and portrayal of Josh in “Big?” If you haven’t seen this movie, then we can’t even be friends. It’s a personal favorite and still makes me laugh and cry.
Have you ever had that moment where you wake up and you’re not the same as you were the day before? Or let me ask this, did you just wake up one day and be grown up? It’s terrifying!

Granted, I didn’t go to bed thirteen and wake up 26 but still. I think I’m officially a grown up. Don’t know how I got there. I was a late bloomer for sure, in every sense of the word. My mom let me have sports bras because all the other 12 year olds were getting boobs and mine weren’t even noticeable. I played with my American Girl dolls until I was 14. I loved dressing them for holidays. My first date and my first boyfriend weren’t until I was 16. The all the sudden I became the adult in many situations and fully took responsibility for all of my choices, no matter how stupid, but I was and probably still am, a total kid at heart.

I’ve been a nanny for 14 years of my life because of this. Being child-like is so much better. I still get giddy at Universal Studios and Disney World and I still have “toys.” My favorite stuffed animal is still in my bed. I love making crafts and coloring in coloring books. I got married and learned what love actually was at 24 after living with him first. I waited until I was 21 to get a credit card. I had a serious savings account at 22 and I’m still not quite ready for babies. Hell, we just committed to a dog! We pay rent, we’ve never bought a new car and we don’t buy ridiculous things. We have credit card debt but it’s under $5,000 so I think we’re okay.

But yesterday, the grown up-ness happened. Today I woke up and I had the “Big” scenario. I’d just spoken to my best friend the other night about how we’ve made these conscious choices and then we kind of become victims of our circumstance. I told her that we choose this one path and end up wandering on it then think, “How did I get here?” It’s like those late night drives where you can’t really remember how you got home.

My husband has been seriously wrestling with job things. He toyed with the idea of school but it just costs too much and in his words, he didn’t “bust his ass,” for all of these years to start from scratch. He’s a chef, and he’s got an epic resume. He came to a crossroads in his career and finally has the opportunity he’s been wanting. Either way, we are in a far better position than we have been. His hard work has paid off! But yesterday he was given an opportunity he just can’t pass up and he had a serious discussion about our future with me.

We have these fun dreams and fantasies. We want to live on the same street that the family I worked as a nanny for all those years lives on so they can help raise our babies. But then my Dad has this amazing acreage in Oregon just ripe for a kick-ass house, so we want my architectural genius of an Uncle to design it, with Eben’s dream kitchen of course! And then we’ll turn that property into a commune of some sort where all of our friends have little cabins here and there. But I also still want to make one more crazy move to a big city, and travel in Europe. Basically I want to win the lottery!

So my husband levels with me and says, “Look, I know that you want to move back to Oregon in a few years but I need to take this opportunity and if I do you need to be okay with us waiting a little longer.” At my opposing look he interjected, “Not forever, but a bit longer.” The bargaining began. He starts telling me he wants us to be able to get another car and buy a house while the market is cheap so we can sell it later and make money off of it.

Hey, I’m a rent kind of girl! I love me a fabulous apartment. I love moving around, finding new areas. A house is a house. Once you are in, you are in! And we had never talked about buying a house down here. I was taken aback. I mean I just wanted a new car, new computer, flat screen TV and vacation time that won’t bankrupt us but he was talking the big time here!

He said the new opportunity included benefit and I heard “babies!” So I say, “If you keep me here you need to understand that I want to start trying to have a baby in a year and a half. I want my baby to grow up in Oregon so my plan for the future may intersect with yours and move on without you. You have to let me fly home and look for houses and keep the moving forward thing happening even if we are here for a handful more of years. I will follow you but you have to be going where I am in the long run.”

Real benefits, real health insurance, means a real life. Doctors appointments, new glasses for my man, dental care, everything you dream about having when you hit 23 and you can’t mooch off of your parents for it anymore. This meant that having children wouldn’t have to wait forever and ever. The non-health insurance thing was the only birth control we had at this point. Benefits opened a whole new door!

We must have hashed this out for an hour and then we agreed. He had to jump on this. We both did. There is no question. And I woke up this morning and thought…wow. He’s going to want to look at houses. We are going to have to move to a new place closer to work to make things more convenient this fall and then we are going to go car shopping. We are going to be making real money and have real health benefits. We are going to be stable and then some.

I immediately became excited. We will be able to pay off the credit card and get the things I’ve been wanting so much. At first when he muttered “Buy a house,” I shrugged. As if I don’t clean enough space in the apartment! But then I thought, we can paint things, we can pick out real furniture, we can really make a home. We’d never had that chance before and it will be coming to us by the time the world ends in 2012, haha!

I woke up this morning and felt like I’d gone from 18 to 26 with new realities and responsibilities. It was a strange, yet awesome feeling. Although nothing is set in stone yet, it’s like bottled promise. The promise of a kind of life I’d thought was a far off reality. Even though I still got a little fantastical with it all, I found myself looking at new apartment and even home listings just because the dream would be becoming a reality.

So maybe I didn’t have to move to NYC and get a job with no skills and the mind of a 13 year old, but I did have to grow up and make some serious decisions with the man I love determining the path the Chriss’s would be taking. Maybe in 6 years I won’t remember how we got there, maybe these conscious choices won’t be what I expected at all, but at least, for now, I’m ready to get into the game a grow up…a little. I’ll still have my stuffed animals with me along the way, and I’ll still get excited to go to the theme parks, but at least I’ll enter the world of adulthood, bills, and responsibilities knowing I can kick its ass just like I’ve done with most everything else!