I think the best and worst moment of my life was when I realized I had turned into my parents.

Not the sixteen year old realization, though, that would be sad. Not that the twenty-five year old realization is that much more profound.

But there’s something about growing up; I mean, actually growing up that really just grows arms and slaps you in the face and lets you know that everything that happened before this moment was just a prelude to you being an internally old human being, destined to live in yoga pants, braless on your couch watching reruns of Friends thinking about all those “good days” without responsibility.

At sixteen, if I had realized I turned out to be my parents I would have done everything in my power to regain my youth and just mess shit up for the fun of it.  As a junior in high school, you never, under any circumstances, want to be your parents.

It’s like going to that party and realizing that the girl who was always “the mom” was there, and she was going to make sure you didn’t drink too much beer, fall asleep somewhere inappropriate, or raid too much of that host’s refrigerator, so when the actual parents came home, it just looked like the kid in charge got super hungry one night and binge ate all the deli meats.

The worst part about realizing that I’ve turned into my parents is the fact that I’ve followed the status quo – depending on what you believe in, of course – and have finally graduated from crazy, party, uncontrollable college girl into full blown quasi-housewife, happy and willing to anticipate the needs of my significant other far beyond my own.

And the stark contrast is that I’m borderline, if not over the fence okay about it.

It’s like I turned twenty-five and all the sudden my brain cells and neurons started triggering all this nonsense about me not being the most important person in the world, and that someone else’s needs matter far more than my own.  And holy shit, I haven’t even had a child yet so this post will change in about five years.

I digress.

The best part about turning into my parents is the fact that I am saving a boat load of money.  I mean, like, saving is totally the thing to do right now.  I am hoarding without intervention because no one seems to think I have a problem with the fact that money isn’t confetti and I don’t need to throw it around to prove that I have it.

And hormonally, at my age, some people know putting it in a bank is far more worthwhile than drinking four glasses of wine at some bar called “Taco” that doesn’t even serve mexican food.

Sidenote: Not that I don’t still drink wines at Taco and complain about the fact that they don’t serve Mexican food. I still do that. It’s god damn outrageous and the owners need to be quarantined and condemned to a lifetime of solely eating burritos.

The other great part is that I don’t think I’m hormonally imbalanced, although that is still up for debate, but there is something extremely and unfortunately true about the phases of life.

We all go through these stages, obviously at different paces considering the circumstances, but we all do.  Birth to teen being the nourishment, get what we need to survive stage.  Teen to young adult being the fake it ’til we make it stage. And then here, where I am, the holy shit I’ve made it, I’m an adult, paying my own way through life, figuring out who I am and what I’m going to do for the rest of it stage.

Whatever stage you’re in, you’re going to make it out alive. It might not be on your timeline, it might not be the way you want it, but you’ll make it.

Just look at your parents.  The entire time they were telling you what to do, where to be, what grades to get, and what goals to set, they knew that someday, down the line, whatever you were going through was a phase. Because they went through it too.

And when you take a step back and realize that, on a Friday night, you’d rather be home, pants off, braless on your couch watching reruns of Friends and remembering the “good old days,” then you’ll know that you’ve turned into your parents.

Life is funny that way.  Things always seem to come full circle.  The people you distrusted the most and hated being around now become the sole reason for your coming home.  At the end of the day, your parents are fucking awesome.

Because when they had you, they had to wait twenty-five years or more for that moment to come, and think of how goddamn grateful they are that you are just now realizing how much shit they had to put up with in order to get to this place.

And be thankful that you finally turned into your parents.

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Have you turned into your parents? If not, are you scared?