My Inner Teenage Girl

When I was a teenager, I had a very skewed idea about what my adulthood would be like. I imagined a swirl of charity balls, a closet full of cocktail dresses and a posh apartment with wood floors and high ceilings. I thought I’d live abroad for a while working as a diplomat in the foreign service before eventually settling down in Washington DC.

The reality is so far from the teenaged fantasy, you’d need a satellite phone to communicate between them. I get partial points for living abroad but I’m not a diplomat. I’ve never even been to a single charity ball. I do get a few more partial points for owning one cocktail dress and a bridesmaid’s dress that could pass if I ever get off my butt and have the thing cut to tea length.

I’ve made peace with my inner introvert, but there’s still a teenage girl who lives inside me who thinks that adulthood is supposed to be way more glamourous than this. And every once in a while, something crosses my desk that makes this girl come out of her room and start asking for favours.

This morning, it was an invitation to the office Christmas party – black tie optional for men, cocktail dresses for the ladies and….this is the best part, the part that has my teenage alter ego on the phone to all her friends…masquerade ball masks required. Think Eyes Wide Shut but without the orgy or creepy possible human sacrifice.

While my inner teenage girl was searching for the right mask to match my cocktail dress, my actual adult was reminding her that the shoes for that dress are in storage and that we hardly know anyone in the office and that Peter knows no one in the office and that I'm painfully shy and incapable of staying up late on a school night.

I haven’t responded to the email yet, although I am 98% certain that there’s no way I can go to the party. I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to the excited teenager. Maybe by allowing her to indulge in the single purely good thing in an adult’s life – the ability to eat ice cream for dinner.