hot child in the city

Whaddaya do?

When someone you admire and respect jumps ship, do you jump as well?

Adulthood is the New Boogieman

More and more I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an adult. What could have possibly set this off, you ask? Last week at work, I signed up for a 401(k). Still, not unusual. Until I got to the part where I had to list a beneficiary IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like being forced to confront my mortality in paperwork. It’s kind of insidious. “Oh, hay, you’re being totes responsible by saving money but in case you die let’s give it to someone, therefore lessening the impact of your death LOLZ!”

Being a single lady, I phone my parents to get social security numbers and inform them that, yes, in the event of my untimely demise, they will get the (currently sparse) contents of my 401(k). Instead of being mortified like I was, they were PROUD. My mother gushed, “Oh Dure, you’re growing up!” My father approved, saying, “Oh, they [my employer] must really want to invest in your future, then! Good job.” I wondered why they weren’t appalled by this.  Maybe they’ve spent so many years being adults and making adult choices that this kind of confrontation with mortality doesn’t even faze them. They may even have life insurance!

After I got home, I spoke to my roommate about it. Being a Baby Lawyer^TM, he promptly informed me that I should have a will.

“A WILL?” I yelled at him.  “All I’d be passing on is debt.”

“Regardless,” he intoned, “if something happens to you, then at least people know what to do, and funeral costs is a big part of that.”

“I’m 24.”

“So?”

“Do you have a will, Justin?”

“Of course I do! I owned my own business at 15!”

At this point, I throw my hands up and begin eating a sandwich, overwhelmed. Sandwiches don’t expect you to designate an executor before your twenty-fifth birthday.

Good Talk.

I had a pretty fantastic talk with A. today. She reminded me that sometimes the worst parts about growing up are the parts that no one tells you about. You know. Like the part where being ‘independent’ and ‘being on your own’ intersect. This weekend, for example. My flight was delayed getting home, and I was pretty sad that I had no one to fetch me from the airport. A. reminded me that it’s not that I didn’t have anyone to pick me up, because I do; they just don’t live in the area, and that sometimes, being a big girl means hailing a cab in rainy weather.