Oh, to be eight again

My friend L just called to say that her ceiling was falling down. It's been raining buckets in St. Louis for the past two days. Sure she can call her landlord, and he'll come, eventually, but we have to fend for ourselves now that we are adults. We have to worry about when he'll show up, how much damage will be caused to our belongings before he does, and how long our home will smell like wet plaster. If this is what the real world has to offer, I'm not so sure I'm excited about it. And to think, I wanted to get to the real world so quickly when I was younger. Now that I'm here, I just want to go back. MTV tells a ballsy lie every week when they broadcast a show called "The Real World." In whose real world do you live in a fabulous apartment, not have to worry about making a rent payment or about your ceilings falling down on your head in your dining room AND bedroom? Every week, we watch this show, "The Real World" to escape our own reality. It's an interesting concept, really.

I've been thinking about this alot lately because my sister and I bought ourselves our very first Christmas tree this year. We had the independence of going to the lot, picking out the tree based on years of shopping with dad, got it into our car by ourselves, dragged it into the building, up the freight elevator, and got it upright in the stand (and it stayed that way, despite the cat!). We had the pleasure of opening the box of ornaments to decorate the tree, we ooohhed and ahhhed at the ones that we literally hadn't seen in years, and we found our very own angel(s) for the top of the tree. Now, though, we are responsible for taking it down ourselves. When we were little, Dad let us have all the fun, but did all the dirty work himself. Maybe we had to take a few ornaments down, but we never had to take the actual tree out to the trash. Now M, my sister, and I have to find the time (and the heart) to pack the ornaments into boxes that they may not come out of for a few more years, take the tree out of the stand, drag it back down the elevator, and heave it into the dumpster. We actually have to make the holidays go away and that's really not very fun at all.

On another adult note, I have to go so that I can pay my property tax. Also, not so much fun. I'm going to try to count my blessings. My ceiling is still in one piece and over my head, and our tree is still standing, at least for one more night. One of my favorite poets, Billy Collins sums up the way that I'm feeling now in his poem, "On Turning Ten."