The ceiling

Each night, I crawl into bed, often times freezing cold and dying to get under some covers...thanks to my husband that likes it so cold! I tug the covers up high, almost covering my face, but not quite. And I look up at the ceiling and think about things and pray/talk to God, staring into the nothingness above before I fall fast asleep. It's the type of routine that you do so often and have done it for so long, that you forget you even do it.

A few nights ago, when I was laying in bed looking up at the ceiling, I started thinking of all the ceilings I have stared at before I fall fast asleep over the years. All the ceilings in 3 of the rooms I inhabited in my parents house (yes, I was a rather high maintenance child because I loved to redecorate so I had 3 different rooms with all different decor). One of them that I put glow in the dark stars all over the ceiling that are still there. I slept in it a few weeks ago when our AC was out and felt like a kid all over again. It kind of looked like the picture above--- but my stars were ALL over. I'm not quite sure how I ever slept with it being so bright as a kid. To go back in time and think of all the things I thought about as a young kid...I remember thinking lots about growing up. What I was going to be when I "grew up", where I was going to live, who my friends were going to be, and who I would fall in love with and eventually marry. And of course, the kid in me thought about if people liked me and if my clothes were cool enough.

Then it was the ceiling of my 3rd floor dorm room in Boyd Hall- where my college life began and some of my best friends were made. I thought I was for sure a grown up. Then the countless rooms I lived in at Pi Phi, including the sleeping dorms. Those nights in the sleeping dorm staring at the ceiling were the most entertaining because they were often filled with someone snoring, a cell phone going off, or a drunken stumble into the sleeping dorms. Next it was my bedroom in our summer house at 1619 Laramie in Manhattan, which was the summer that I met Jimmy and fretted about my relationship at the time and why this awesome guy came into my life and just what I was going to do with him :) Then it was the first time I lived out the state in my first apartment in Bartlesville, OK for the summer during an internship. Quite the summer that was with new friends and my first "real" job; I rarely think of that ceiling because it was such a short time but when I do I remember those fun times. Then it was my last ceiling in Manhattan at our apartment at 8th and Moro. A wonderful senior year with lots of amazing memories with the best of friends.

Then it was back to my parents house in the last bedroom that I could possibly sleep in (minus my parents room) for awhile. It was that ceiling I started my first real job and stared at the ceiling all night the night that Jimmy and I broke up. I won't ever forget that night because I really thought my heart was broken. And finally into my condo....in there I stared at the first ceiling I ever owned myself. It was there that I struggled with what I wanted in life and who I thought I wanted to be. Those nights when I didn't like my job or who I had become and was slowing becoming. I now was an "adult" I guessed, with a mortgage, bills, a job, responsibilities. The night after Jimmy and I decided to get back together was one I remember staring long and hard at the ceiling with a huge smile on my face, not sure of what was next, but I knew I was happy about it. And then the first night I slept there after I adopted Milly and Willy :) Well, that was interesting.

Now finally, rewind a few nights ago and I'm staring at the second ceiling that I own- but this time I own it with someone else. My husband. Who was lying next to me with 2 of our dogs snuggled under the covers with us and the 3rd at the bottom of the bed on the floor. I stare at the ceiling in disbelief that I'm now old enough to be married with a house of my own, dogs, a husband, house projects, laundry, a job and to-do lists daily. Am I a grown up? We don't have kids....so in my mind that is not a grown up :) Haha. But if I was to go back to my mindset that I had in one of those rooms in my parents house - I would for sure label my self as not only "old" but for sure a grown up.

So here's my point and my question - is this how life is? It must be. The older you get, the more you push back the inevitable grown up stage of life. I used to stare up at the star ceiling as a kid and think of the juniors in high school that volunteered at our elementary school and how maybe someday I was going to be as old and as cool as they were. And then at all the ceilings through college, thinking of graduating and what it'd be like to have a real job and be a real adult. So here I am. Staring at the ceiling of our house and I still don't feel it. Laying next to my husband with our 3 dogs with a job to wake up and go to the next day. And I still don't feel like a grown up. While society may view me that way (at times....), I still feel like a kid at heart. And that Jimmy and I are playing "house". And someone is going to tell me someday my job and these paychecks I get, yeah they were really monopoly money.

Moral of the story? I hope I never stop feeling that way; except for maybe someday I hope to get over the fact that I will never have "cool enough" clothes :)