Are we grown up yet?

Someone asked me yesterday if I felt 'grown up' yet, or whether I still find myself saying "one day when I'm an adult..."

Answer: I'm not sure. If it weren't for the increasing number of younger-than-me people in the world, I probably would still be saying "when I grow up I want to be a..." However, I work with college students who generally think I am ancient because I was born in the 70s (Really? You made mix-tapes from LPs? You read book encyclopedias? You were a teenager in the 80s? You had a mullet?)

So I guess that makes me a grown up. But I still talk in silly voices, wear fancy dress, laugh at knock-knock jokes, hide under the duvet cover and clap my hands when I get excited (especially if there are fireworks). I'll take a tip from Jenny Joseph and call it 'practicing for old age'.

Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

-Jenny Joseph