What does being an adult mean to you? And does the word have positive or negative connotations?

After an interesting twitter discussion, hot chick Janiece wrote about her take on the mythical adult; here’s mine.

I have always felt *old*. Controlled. Humdrum. Intense. Stressed. A bit melancholy. I’ve never been particularly good at relaxing, playing, letting go. Since I have been very young, I’ve tried to be the caretaker and the adult to those around me. The whole adult thing comes very easily to me, it’s acknowledging that life can be enjoyed that is a little tougher.

Certainly there are moments where I suddenly feel disoriented and think, whoa, wait — I’m just a kid playing house, how did I end up with my own grown kids?

Still, my life has mostly been a string of sobering moments that have made me painfully aware of my adulthood, my level of responsibility.

• At 15, I vividly recall helping my drunk father to bed, driving my migraine-stricken mother to the emergency room, and waiting up for my sister to return home from a school dance.

• At 25 I gave birth to my first son. My husband at the time slept through my labor and delivery and I realized how alone I’d be. Thank god for my sister and mom who were with me.
• At 27 my eventually-to-be-ex screwed up our money yet again, leaving us thousands of dollars in the hole, and me pregnant and destitute in a foreign country.
• At 30 I finally divorced the man, which cost me my faith, and moved halfway across the country with my job. My dad not-so-diplomatically informed me I needed to stop leaning on them emotionally, I was on my own there too, and I cried for hours.
• At 33 my youngest, at 5, had his worst asthma attack ever and ended up in pediatric ICU. Seeing him walk down the hospital hallway pulling an oxygen canister drove home my responsibility like nothing else.
• At 35, when he was 70, my father died. My mom, sister and I held each other up as we put his memorial together, and I closed down his consulting business.
• At 38, when he was 13, I held my eldest son through his first tonic/clonic epileptic seizure, then stood by as paramedics thought he wasn’t going to come back from it. He nearly died, and was not there for a very long time. It terrified me.
• At 40, when he was 15, I lived through several months of that same son’s violent, bipolar, psychotic break. (Related to previous? Probably.) Supporting a child through mental illness that I could not help and could not cure is perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, including the next…
• At 44, when he was 45, I lost my beloved husband to a sudden and unexpected heart attack. Saying goodbye to his cold, still shell and going on alone to support my family and continue my profession and my life was both a challenge and a comfort.

After those painful, transformative life changes I’m consciously trying to enjoy life more, to value family, friends, community and my own health and sanity. I’ve been an adult for everyone for a very long time, and now I choose to work less, to be less obligated, to be less well-behaved. I’ve kicked my kids out to a college apartment. I’m buying a condo and going to Europe.

I plan to grab onto life with both hands, travel, laugh, love and enjoy the ride.

This week’s Federal judicial reversal of Proposition 8 as unconstitutional has brought up some fascinating water cooler and after-hours conversations.

Single Judge reversing Popular Vote

We were talking yesterday about the Proposition 8 overturn with a group of colleagues, and one of the participants was a Russian immigrant, a naturalized US citizen. He made the comment that he had a hard time with the overturn because he doesn’t believe the democratic, popular vote of the people should be able to be overturned by a single judge’s judicial decision – nor a state law be overturned by a federal court’s decision. He feels that it’s a miscarriage of democracy and, of course given his country’s history, he believes such a process can lead to abuses of power and eventual corruption.

Of course, the opposing viewpoint is that when we’re considering constitutional law and matters of right and wrong, democratic vote is NOT the end-all be-all arbiter of such issues. If democracy decides that, say, women and blacks can’t vote it doesn’t make it morally right, legally correct or ultimately a sound law. (I realize that I’m grossly oversimplifying.)

As my excellent friend Eric says, we don’t actually live in a democracy, we live in a republic. The government is only indirectly influenced by the will of the people, and given that mob rule is not always measured and sane, this is not a bad thing. The initiative/referendum process is a relatively new development and actually cuts across all the careful checks and balances of the original republic.

Morality

Back to the question of morality, though. The definition of right and wrong, especially when it comes to gender, sex and marriage, is highly subjective and entirely unclear. I believe that what a person does in his or her own private home is their own business. I believe that if it harms no one, we should be able to do as we choose.

Not everyone is as liberal as I am. Those with strong religious or traditional marriage views have a different perspective on marriage rights & definitions. My answer, only partially tongue-in-cheek? You don’t believe gay marriage is right? Then don’t marry a gay person.

Bottom line: I don’t get to define your moral choices and you don’t get to define mine.

I grew up reading and watching science fiction. My favorite TV & movies including Star Trek, Logan’s Run and Stargate, and books included Robert Heinlein, Samuel Delany and Ursula K Leguin. They all depicted a sexually liberal, free, experimental culture that extrapolated “what-ifs” about love and marriage with wild abandon.

Same-sex marriage was small potatoes. They showed variants of relationships and marriage including polyamory, limited term, polyandry, polygamy, group, line, and more as a backdrop to a harder science background. Transgender and even gender variable characters examined marriage and family and gender roles from entirely new perspectives in those brave new worlds.

I don’t have a problem with any of these ideas among consenting adults. (The FLDS families, with underage wives and what in my opinion are abbreviated womens and adolescent boys rights along with what I think is religious brainwashing, are a different story.)

What you do in the privacy of your own home, even if it’s right next door, is your own business. (OK, I wouldn’t be too crazy about having a swinger club next door, but that really stretches “if it doesn’t harm anyone” – that kind of wild extended partying is not really being a good neighbor.) Enjoy, prosper, you’re welcome to it – and yes, my kids can play with your kids.

I’ve been heterosexual and (serially) monogamous most of my life, so these questions are somewhat academic for me. Should I ever choose to embark upon another relationship it would likely be along the same lines, although I’m not inclined toward marrying again. (Why?) I do have cherished friends who are married gays/lesbians and others who would like to be – and I wholeheartedly support their desires.

Shoot, they can have my no-longer-used marital rights. I don’t want ‘em anymore.