That awkward in between...

And I'm not talking about a ten-year-old.

Me.

Mid-twenties-driving-the-van-to-girl-scouts me.

Friends calling to hang out and drink until 2am me.

I had my babies young, A being born when I was only 19 years old.  I myself was still a kid.  Now staring down my next birthday I'm sitting here wondering if this will be the age I finally grow up?  I already feel the pressure, the strange, awkward, "Did A's mom seriously just say/do that?" most of the other parents think I'm immature because I have a lip ring and my kid is in second grade kind of feeling.  I know a few other moms out there like me, but they're not close enough to validate these feelings over a cup of coffee (or a cocktail) while our kids hang out at least once a week.  Or at least if they are, they aren't saying anything.

While other moms with 7-year-olds are calm and relaxed and talking about their hobbies, since, you know, they had their stuff together by the time they were my age...I'm all "What the hell day is it?  Cause I just woke up at 2pm and now I need to run my ass to class."  While other moms are chatting to their kids in the backseat all patiently because they're mature enough to have a level of patience I have not yet achieved, I'm turning up the dance songs on the radio and dancing along with the girls.  When we pull up next to a car of teenagers I quickly stop, because I'm not hip enough to be dancing like that. For god's sake woman, you have three children!

I'm too young to go to PTA meetings and be taken seriously.  I'm too old to be in the mosh pit at concerts, and be thought of as hardcore.  I'm at an age where I'm straddling the line, I'm expected to be one or the other but I still so badly want both.  Given the age of A, people expect I should've already chosen to straighten out my act and started volunteering with all the free time I really ought to have, because shouldn't I have became what I said I wanted to be when I grew up, all those years ago, like five years back?

I'm too old to stay up until 3am having a good time.  I'm too young to be content with evenings in, every evening.  I really ought to be filling out Christmas cards every year, where the heck are they?  I'm asked.  I don't even think we did a birth announcement for W....that's what Facebook is for isn't it?  I'm too young to find envelopes and stamps worth my very limited time and funds.  Got wifi?  Jump on and  tweet "It's a girl!"

I'm young enough that the piercings and tattoos and rock concerts could be "just a phase" but I'm old enough that they probably aren't.

My excitement in this picture is testimony for how much my tendency to enjoy the things I do is just a phase.

I feel like I'm growing up right beside my daughters.  The only mature person in our household is the male parental unit, and he still wears Transformers t-shirts.  We sit and do our homework together, A and I.  She talks about tattoos with me, because I've got lots of visible ones.  I find myself chuckling at her stories from school and when she runs her emotions by me in response to crap that happens to her during the day, I'm saying, "I know, right?!"  All these people are talking about their retirement funds and their savings accounts in the audience of A's activities and I'm like, hey, cool, I've got enough to go to Target for a pair of jeans from the clearance rack.  Yeah buddy.

At the same time all my friends from highschool (ok, most of them) are getting married and enjoying the careers they've devoted themselves too, creating pinterest boards full of what they plan to do for their very carefully calculated and planned children.  I'm just over here, a whirlwind of "holy crap I hope we land on our feet someday".  Others are going out and enjoying their 20's, the time when we're allowed to do stupid and be drunk at the same time, because by 30 we should know better.  And here I am, expected to know better because I have children but so badly wanting to do stupid and drunk because I'm still part of the 20's age group.

But then I think, damn.  I'm awesome all in my own category.  I'm a mixture of solid responsibility to my children, role model mom, having fun when I can squeeze in the time, and dressing and acting all the sorts of ways I want to, all rolled in a coating of pretty hilarious and fun.

To hell with what is expected of me.

Here comes 27.  Will I grow up next year?  Is this it for me?  Somehow, I don't think I will, ever.  And somehow...that doesn't really bother me as much as people lead me to believe it should.