Adulting According to Alex

January's Monthly Musing is brought to you by my beautiful and funny daughter, Alexandria (in the picture at, then and now). She celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday on January 4 and reflected on her "many" years of being an adult.

I remember when I was younger and I couldn't wait to be an adult. Here I am in my now mid 20s and I realize how very little young Alex knew. My childhood was a time to be alive. I finally grew up to realize not only is adulting awful, but I'm not very good at it most days. Even though it's not all sunshine and pixie dust, I have to say that there are things I can definitely appreciate about being an almost functioning adult.

One of my top favorite things about adulthood, eating desserts first. My favorite guilty pleasure. As a kid I envied my mom eating her brownie sundae before she actually ate her dinner while I had to suffer through dinner first. I'll even add eating ice cream for breakfast to this one.

Being in grown folk’s business is up there on my list. As a kid I worked really hard to be neither seen nor heard so I could sneak some gossip at the holidays. Eventually the gossip got too good and I had to comment and I got hit with the classic line, “Stay out of grown folk’s business.” Then I was sent in to do dishes. My time has come now. I am grown folks; inner child rejoice!

Celebrating my birthday for as long as I want is something I look forward to now that I’m an adult. My mom taught me this one. Why should you limit your awesomeness to just one day? Why not a week? A month? You're grown! I am currently 3 days post birthday celebration and I plan on milking it as long as allowed. There is nothing wrong with treating yourself.

Getting to use “cause I'm grown and I can” for everything is something I've been waiting to bust out for a little while now. You better believe that I use it every opportunity I get. I have really only dipped my toe into the pool of adulthood but don't think that has made me question my grown status. It's such a perfect eloquent way to shut down any farther conversation. It's beautiful really.

I really hate being an adult for the most part. It's nice to know that on my worst days ice cream makes a good dinner choice and nobody can tell me otherwise.