Amy Lu's View

I do get a little tired by all the “adulting” jokes. Yeah, cute, but overdone.

But I sincerely have thought that there would come a time when I would feel like an “adult.” Now that I’m over 50, I think I need to accept that time isn’t necessarily going to happen. Yes, if I look back over my life, I do feel different now than I did when I was twenty, but the changes have been subtle and gradual and don’t necessarily mean I’m more mature. 

One small way I thought I might feel like an adult is in my experience of possessions. For example, I thought I would someday just magically want and understand having matching towels.

But more often than not, having what I consider “adult” possessions just feels stressful. It’s not that I’m not materialistic–I am. I like things. I like owning things. I like having things. But buying things–at least things that aren’t clothes–can be time-consuming and angst-ridden. Making decisions about what are the best things for us to have just takes too much thought and consideration. Plus, I have just enough awareness and liberal guilt to be weighed down by the environmental and social justice consequences of my purchases. 

While I like the idea of having “adult” things, I like the things I have. For example, I love dishes, and think I would like having new dishes, but I like the dishes I bought almost thirty years ago at the dollar store. And I bought them with my mom. Why/how would I get rid of those?

“My possessions are causing me suspicion but there’s no proof”

–“Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House*

So Chad and I joke about living like college kids–not that we can’t afford “better,” but we just don’t have the motivation to attain more. But sometimes, inertia gets the best of me and has a real downside–like living with a broken dish drainer for ten years. Did we get this thing for our wedding?! Not sure when it actually stopped functioning well, but it’s been a half-assed nasty thing taking up way too much counter space for years.

It’s not like I don’t use a dish drainer. Even with a dishwasher (also extremely old and not working well) I eat a lot and drink a lot so have a LOT of dishes–even in the Before Times. Being quarantined and spending so much time at home and liking to shop online during  online meetings finally motivated me to purchase a new dish drainer. 

It’s been a life changer. Seriously. When you consider how much I use this thing versus how much I spent on it, it’s kind of astounding I didn’t buy it sooner.

Is it the perfect dish drainer? I’m sure it’s not. I’m sure I could have found something more attractive and functional at a better price. But that may have taken me another thirty years. My friend Mark’s motto of “Right is good, done is better” can also apply to shopping. 

I finally decided that I am the kind of person that needs a decent dish drainer. That question, “Am I the kind of person who owns this?” is at the heart of many of my possession dilemmas. What does owning this or that say about me? What does NOT owning it mean? Like it or not, I think our possessions are often more about our identities, our hopes, our aspirations, that what we actually want or need. 

Another possession question I’ve wrestled with during pandemic times is “Are we a decanter household?” The answer is a hesitant, slightly embarrassed, but enthusiastic “Yes.” 

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Is having decanters rather ridiculous when we basically live like college students? Yes, except we don’t drink like college students (it would be much cheaper if we did). I’ve been intrigued with decanters for years (mostly inspired by TV, especially “Lucifer”), and several years ago we acquired a really awesome vintage 70’s decanter at a second-hand shop for the play “Orion” we were doing. 

This awesome decanter languished in our basement until I decided, “What the heck, I really like alcohol, so why not drink it out of a totally pretentious and silly but pretty decanter?” And then, I got Chad a decanter for Christmas engraved with “Chamy,” because, if you’re going to be preposterous, you should be all in. 

And yes, we actually use it. Not always, but more often than not. I’m not sure it makes drinking any better but it certainly doesn’t make it any worse. The only real downside is that I occasionally waste some alcohol if I spill it while pouring it into the decanter, and it’s sometimes hard to remember what booze is in the decanter–as we only have two decanters we don’t have one for each type of booze we regularly consume (but that’s certainly something to aspire to. Unfortunately, most of the decanters I’ve seen come with glasses and I love glasses but we definitely do NOT have room for any more glasses). 

So am I the kind of person who uses a decanter? Yes (even if I’m using it while wearing sweatpants). Do I appreciate a functioning dish drainer? Absolutely. Are my plates from the dollar store? Uh-huh. Are my towels matching and free of snags caused by cat claws? No way. 

I don’t know what deeper meaning this conveys about my essence: I’m silly, lazy, materialistic but feel guilty about my environmental footprint. I like to think I’m unconventional (no country duck decorating aesthetic for me) and artistic. I’m sentimental. I’m cheap. 

I’m not sure what I thought adult me would look like, but this isn’t quite it. My possessions do often make me confused and suspicious, but I’m not sure why.

Just don’t let me get buzzed and shop from the Hammacher Schlemmer site, or I may end up trying to figure out the existential meaning of a giant pepper grinder:

*I loved this song as a teenager, and saw the band in concert and got a t-shirt with this quote on it. I got extremely self-righteous/annoyed/defensive when my friends asked me what it meant.