I have now officially signed my life away in order to buy a house. I feel like a grown up.

Question: why didn’t I feel quite grown up at 40 without buying a house? I owned a house at 22… definitely didn’t feel like a grown up then.

Then again, I bought that house under false pretenses, pressed by my (unbeknownst to me) con-artist, live-in boyfriend. To be clear, I did know he lived with me, I just didn’t know he was a con-artist until afterwards. Anyway, he talked me into buying this house with his income but on my credit, using a loan where all they do is check your credit rating, they don’t verify your employment. Why anyone would give out this type of loan is far beyond me. Why I would allow myself to be persuaded to do such a thing is a completely different sociological, psychological treatise. Suffice to say I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.

Anyway, that’s all somewhat beside the point of why I feel more grown up today than I did yesterday before signing all the papers for this house. You’d think by 40 years of age one would feel grown up without the outward trappings of “adulthood”. And, mostly I did. I am married, I have stepchildren that I raise and stand in the gap for as a mom, I own a car outright, I have a steady income, and pay my bills on time. Those are “adult” things. Still, I feel that little difference.

In other news: Lots of Christmas parties and other Christmas events coming up. Feeling as I do about my appearance right now, I’m not looking forward to them as much as I might be, because I have nothing special to wear to any of them.  I have pretty jewelry though. I’ll make do somehow. If only I could lose 50 pounds overnight. *sigh*