Playing House

Let's say you've found yourself in your early twenties--say 21--and in a semi-adult relationship. That is, by definition a relationship that constitutes of sex, finances, and obligations. And let's just say that you've decided to stick it out on your own, a committed couple breaking roots from a low-income city just hoping you don't fall down flat. That means juggling things you can't possibly afford, bouncing from location to location trying to make it through the early years of adulthood, pregraduate studies.

This is the beginning of a chronicled manuever to what all young girls know as "playing house". From choosing who will play the mommy, daddy, and the baby, to platforms much too big for our feet, dresses drooping casually where breasts have yet to develop, long necklaces, broken telephones, old brief cases that no longer latch properly, hats that will sag over ours ears, and bedroom forts as substitute housing.

I am no longer a girl, but the rules still apply. Instead of plastic vacuum cleaners and rubber foods, its the real thing that sucks up a quarter and burns up or vegetables bought two days too late, rotting in their plastic store-bought baggies, forgotten in fridge drawers all too quickly. It was easier when we were girls, and we decided we didn't want to be the mommy, or we wanted to move, change our adolescent careers from actresses to dancers to police offices to robbers. No, no. The rules still apply and they fit a bit too snuggly, like those jeans from freshman year. So like I said, this is my attempt to set down those rules, guidelines, and non-rules for those of us still succumbing and over the course of these entries show exactly what it's like for girls "playing house" in their twenties.