A Slow, Measured Descent

My grandma always used to make a roast for dinner on Sundays, and as always it would be accompanied bysome manner of sensible vegetable. I have always looked at the practice as the very definition of classical adulthood. When I was a child, I never stopped to ask what method of cooking she used because it wasn't important to me. Now that I'm 26, I have found that the Crock Pot is probably the best way to cook a roast, and as strange as it's going to sound, I'm not sure how I feel about this knowledge. 
Just look at that beautiful bastard. There are some pieces of information that make you stop and think for a minute about what it means  (or, it might be that I read all of the Existential Comics this morning). I made myself waffles this morning for breakfast, and while they were cooking, prepared dinner. In an Earlier Post , I made the claim that making waffles simply because you wanted waffles WAS adulthood, but I realized my error. Acting on impulse, doing something for the reason of, "cuz I can, and I want to," is a great thing, but doing things, "because  Future Me will thank Now Me," is a whole other beast entirely. Sure, both are completely acceptable reasons for acting a certain way, but is one more "adult" than the other? I don't know. To me, the question, itself, is kind of weird.

The Crock Pot is a foreign beast to me, and a little frightening. Stupid, I know. It's an adult version of being afraid of the monsters under your bed, but the way I figure it, this is a device designed to be hot - really hot - for a long time, and left alone for hours on end to its own devices. That spells fire hazard. So, instead of going about my day like a productive human being (read: adult), I am home, babysitting the very incarnation of responsibility. If I leave it, it'll catch fire, burning down the building and extinguishing several lives - at least one of which is a baby - says my mind. So I stay. 

It's the trusting that everything will be alright that's my sticking point. On the big things, sure, it's easy to sit back with a grin and say, "Ah, you'll be alright." It's the insignificant things, like, "Will dinner set my house on fire if I go out for a bit to see the sun?" that are the difficult things to trust. My high school history teacher, Rob Gardner, always used to say "Familiarity breeds complacency," and my understanding of that sentiment has changed so much over the last decade (ye gods, decade?) that I'm sure whatever infantile form of comprehension I had at the time is vastly insignificant, compared to what it is now. By this point in my life, I have grown familiar with the idea that I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow morning, and that things have a possibility of seeming brighter when I do. That depraved Crock Pot, however... 


I'm not sure why I'm trying to define adulthood of late, but I very much appreciate your sticking with me while I do. I'll probably have another moment of indescribable clarity in the future, so sit tight, friends.