Stylized line drawing of mark playing the flute

When I realized I'm a grownup

I’ve heard people say you don’t feel like a grownup until you have kids, but I don’t think that was true for me.

Don’t get me wrong. Having kids changed me in a lot of ways, the most significan't being how much better I understand my own parents. But there have still been moments in the last decade where I’ve felt like a kid just pretending to be an adult.

I’d get invited to someone’s house and my first thought upon entering would be β€œThis is a real grownup’s house.” Maybe everyone feels that way, I don’t know.

But that all changed when I heard the Katy Perry song This is How We Do for the first time. Now I love me some Katy Perry (Roar is one of my top 10 songs of all time). And some Ke$ha. And Taylor Swift and Pink and Avril Lavigne and all the rest of it. I have the Pop music tastes of a 13 year old.

So there’s a line in the middle of This is How We Do that goes

Yo, shout out to all you kids, buying bottle service, with your rent money! Respect

And all I could think was β€œJesus, how irresponsible can you be. If you can’t afford to go out and pay rent, pay your fucking rent.”

Followed closely by the thought, β€œShit, I think I’m a grownup now.”