My generation gets a lot of grief these days.
We are self-entitled. We are lazy. We live in our parents' basement far longer than our parents ever lived in theirs. We want everything but don't want to give back. We play too many video games and grow ironic moustaches to make a statement. We think more than we act (and when we're acting, it's doing something older generations don't approve of – occupying Wall Street, voting NDP, protesting social wrongs in the world.)
We are at once bitter and disenchanted but also far too idealistic. Most of all, we're afraid to grow up.
It isn't hard to figure out why. The world is a serious place with many problems, both economically and existentially. In school, teachers taught us all sorts of things about how to grow up but not how to be a grown up.
There comes a time in every persons' life when we realize that despite all our efforts to avoid it, we've somehow, unaccountably, crossed that line from disenfranchised youth to an adult.
My time came this past weekend.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, at the ripe old age of 29-and-a-half, for the first time in my life, I realized that my father and I were going to have to disagree on more than just politics.
My dad is a fountain of wisdom and logic. I've always known he knows more than I do. If it's not his IQ, which is over genius level, it would be the fact that he's first on my contact list to call whenever I have a problem with my car, my plumbing, my appliances, my home décor that proved it. My dad is an expert on life. Even though he knows next to nothing about cars, plumbing, appliances or décor, he is excellent at giving me little gems of wisdom like, “Just call AMA – no, I'm not going to come get you, that's why I bought you AMA!” and “Call a plumber. Seriously.”
I have, throughout my whole life, followed my father's advice – except, of course, when he tried to explain to me why Stephen Harper was going to save Canada.
Then, this weekend, my father told me that there was no way I was allowed to have a dog.
It's a small thing, to some people. But dogs are very important to me. My best friend was a dog named Elmo, who I got when I was 12 and who died a few years ago. I have spent the last five years working towards the goal of someday committing to a life that was stable enough to have a dog. Houseplants just aren't doing it for me.
“You can't have a dog until you buy a house,” he said.
Depressed, I hung up the phone and contemplated a dog-less future. Here's another tidbit about my generation: unless we want to work in the oil and gas industry, we will never, ever be able to afford a house in this economy.
Let's be honest. Affording an apartment is rough enough.
It's true, having a dog in an apartment is not ideal. But with a little bit of compromise, I could have made it work. I've researched it and dogs living in apartments are just as happy as dogs in giant houses. They are evolutionarily designed to live in dens and small places with their pack, after all. All they need is a lot of opportunity for exercise, a lot of walks, and they are perfectly happy. I, too, would be perfectly happy living with my little pack of me and a happy little dog and maybe my houseplant, though it seems to be dying. Again.
So, saddened, I contemplated the rest of my life with only drooping houseplants to talk to. I wearily studied my current plant, one of a string of plants who have come into my apartment and died terrible deaths despite my careful pruning, watering, and loving care.And that's when I realized. I am nearly 30 years old! It's time I started making my own decisions about how I live my life and what I can and cannot do! I am not a child living in my father's basement anymore!
When I was a child, my father liked to tell me, “While you're under my roof, you'll live by my rules.”
I'm not under his roof anymore.
It was a small thing, but the realization that I am, in fact, an adult, required to make my own decisions and deal with the consequences had huge existential effects on me.
And so, at 29-and-a-half, I'm finally ready to grow up, to make my own decisions.
Hopefully my dad won't be too disappointed with me and will still answer the phone when I'm having car trouble, even if it's just to tell me to call AMA.
