Trying to be Boring

There’s no manual for maturity.  If there was, I would have scowered it several times over by now, because my adulthood-related anxiety is increasing by the day.  In the absence of a guide book, my friends and I have been left to skulk self-consciously into the world of the grown up, tentatively taking cues from one another, none of us quite sure how we’re meant to behave.    

But you wouldn't know it.  On any given drinking sesh, we can be seen engaged in a brazen boasting match over our latest success in the game of the grownup.  Lizzie declared recently that she was ‘so over partying’, to which I retorted in feigned humility, ‘Oh yeah, I can’t even stay up past midnight anymore!’  To admit one’s confusion with the practicalities of the adult world would be to betray one’s own stinking immaturity. 

As a testament to our transition into the next frontier, Caitlin shunned the usual birthday debauchery this year for a quaint weekend getaway.  The invitation stipulated that all should be adorned in winter woollies, and that rowdy behaviour was not to be tolerated.  On the weekend just gone, we duly packed our swags and convened in the King Valley.  The beginning was to script, if a tad frigid.  We drank tea, chatted about cows and cooed appropriately at the rolling hills.  I couldn't help but think our version of maturity was a touch contrived, more of a patched-together parody than the real thing. 

Our valiant efforts at sophistication gave way after approximately six hours.  I walked out to the balcony to find Jim engaged in some sort of collision match with Mike, the aim of which appeared to be to career into one’s opponent as fast as drunkenly possible.  Mini-groups had split off and were absorbed in emotionally charged deep and meaningfuls.  There was crying, laughing, running and the forbidden screaming.  Chaos had descended in spite of us all. 

The next day, sheepish looks plastered to our faces, we rushed to excuse ourselves from the events of the night before.  'It wasn't me making all that noise!'  Insisted Jim, and when I questioned Sophie as to how late she had stayed up, she squirmed and threw Rosie under the bus.  'I was in bed really early, Rosie was up til 4!'  

Nobody want to be the one left behind, the one still floundering around, drinking and partying, when everyone else has moved on to bigger and better things.  In a very short space of time, the rules of the game have changed.  It’s no longer cool and hipster to sleep in, shun work and drink like a fish.  In our fear of becoming the loser who won’t grow up, those pleasures have been re-cast as taboo.  We’re coming up to 30 now, and we’re in a mad rush to act like it.