Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Responsibility

So, here's the thing.  I'm a bit rubbish at being a grown up.  Usually I can do a decent job of ignoring the fact that I'm basically an overgrown ten year old.  That sort of denial comes easily when you're rubbish at being a grown up.  It's all conveniently circular and self perpetuating.

I've been on a training course in Cardiff this week, for my job.  I sit in the room, I look like I'm listening and taking in the information which the trainer is throwing at me.  But, really, in the morning I'm thinking about what the buffet lunch will consist of (sandwiches, cold chicken drumsticks, soggy mini pancake rolls, a selection of chopped up stuff to dip in pureed other stuff) and in the afternoon I'm thinking about how late I can have a cup of tea and still complete the ninety minute drive home without needing a wee break.  Across the entirety of the day there are underlying thoughts of the imminent baby, plus plans for the weekend, plus what is my favourite cheese.

I'm not loving the training course.

But it has brought me back to Cardiff, the city where I studied for my degree.  Yesterday it also became the city where I parked my car and couldn't find it again, which is a less endearing feature.

Students, being all studenty.  They were probably drunk.
When I was walking back to my car today (parked in a road which I wouldn't forget this time) I was looking at all the current students milling around.  I don't envy them, despite their fresh faces, "statement" clothing and air of yet-to-be-realised potential.  Because they're going to come out of university with a degree (probably), a raging hangover (almost definitely) and roughly three times the amount of debt I accrued while studying (maybe, I don't pretend to know their actual financial situation).

It was as I realised how much debt they'd be in that I had a horrible thought: in eighteen years time I will have an eighteen year old.  My eighteen year old will probably want to go to university.  I will want my eighteen year old to go to university.  But I will not want my eighteen year old to become a twenty-one year old saddled with masses of debt.   Shit it.  That means I'll want to help him out, give him cash to waste on booze, weed and all the other trappings of studentdom.

BUT I HAVE NO CASH.  Precisely because I am an overgrown ten year old who sits in training courses and thinks about whether chocolate and Philadelphia should ever be mixed (still unresolved) I am to the corporate ladder as a greased sloth is to, well, anything it tries to climb.

So, what to do?  Because I'm fairly sure there are some costs associated to having a child prior to their enrolment at university, so I don't have an eighteen year window in which to win the lottery (haven't checked my tickets from Saturday yet though!)

I know money's not everything by the way, I'm more using it as an example of my responsibilities.  There are others, many, many others.  But this has already got quite long, and I should go to bed, to make sure my mind is fresh, sharp, ready to think about the important issues of tomorrow.  Like whether a HobNob is better than a Digestive.

10 comments:

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    1. I'm not sure. I ate two digestives today, they were good. No HobNobs available though, poor show.

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  2. Chuckle. Had a good laugh reading this.

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  3. This is very funny. My inner 10 y o drives a large portion of my decision making too.

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    1. Thanks chap, appreciate the kind words. Ten year old thinking is pretty ace, so that's good.

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  4. I didn't know you were in The 'Diff this week, I shall wave at you from over here ->...!

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    1. *waves back*

      It's been a lovely week actually, except for having to be in an office for all of it.

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  5. If it's any good I plan my lunch all through my husband's sermons and am definitely less grown up than my 9-year-old, although I am starting to sprout facial bristles which is very grown up indeed.

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    1. Yep, that sounds similar. I felt awful when I wasn't really paying any attention at my cousin's wedding recently!

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