Megan Nicol Reed: The truth about being a grown-up

This is the lousy truth about being a grown-up, writes Megan Nicol Reed. Photo / Getty Images

You think it's going to be all Big Bikkie Memphis Meltdowns for breakfast and BBQ Shapes for dinner. Unlimited screen time forever! And like, you're never going to pick up your towel or make your bed — cos what's the point, right? Like you only live once, so just let the good times roll.

Yeah, that's what we all thought, too. We couldn't wait to grow up, hit the open road, get the party started. We were going to be free, man. Freer than a bird, freer than the freakin' wind. But like you, like all bright young things, we omitted to read the fine print, we skimmed over the T's & C's.

If only we had. Because the lousy truth about being a grown-up is:

• No one will tell you what a cute drunk you make. If, after three chilli margaritas, you find yourself twerking over the coffee table, they will instead make concerned noises about functioning alcoholics and the link between more than 14 standard drinks a week and bowel cancer.

• No one really fantasises about Mrs Robinson. In fact, file away in a very safe place the time that okay-looking, middle-aged man gave you the glad eye in the small appliances aisle of Kmart, because you will dine out on it internally for years to come.

• You will think nothing of devoting an entire evening to attempting to calculate how much it would cost to rebuild your home in the event of a natural disaster ...

• ... or spending the entire following evening arguing with your partner whether it would be wiser to opt for the sum insured or the declared value house insurance policy.

• You will have no disposable income. What's left after you've insured the house, the car, and each other, will be spent on insuring the dog.

• A chunk of your downtime will be spent wondering if the reason the dog is rubbing its arse against your leg is because it has worms. After trying to work out when you last dosed the dog, you will decide that it can't hurt to do it again. Except that the dog will resist all your efforts to make it swallow the damned thing. So you'll take it to the vet, who will tell you it needs a blood test/injection/special diet. Oh well, you'll think, handing over $753, thank goodness we're insured. Except that you won't be, not for blood tests or injections or special diets. There'll be a clause.

• You'll wake in the night in a blind panic because you've just remembered you don't have any fruit the right size to fit in the kids' lunchboxes.

• You will spend hours and hours of your time and hundreds and hundreds of dollars on jazz ballet/rhythmic gymnastics/bass guitar lessons for your children, only to then have to buy a ticket to watch them do jazz ballet/perform rhythmic gymnastics/play bass guitar incredibly badly.

• You take a photo and write a formal letter of complaint to the manager when, for the second time in a row, you buy a bag of mandarins at the supermarket and find more than half are mouldy. And, when you receive an apology email with a $20 voucher attached, you're so pleased with yourself you do a little jig.

• When there's a new fashion your first thought will not be, should I get it in blue or red, but, will I actually be able to pull it off?

• Rather than taking each other right there and then across the bathroom sink just because you can, you will remind each other that sex is the glue in a relationship and brainstorm ways you can be more intimate.

Following on

Like me, Kristina is prone to melancholy. "The deep personal sadness that I've overcome in the last five decades and replaced with positive brain-messaging still does not protect me from being pulled down the rabbit hole and retreating to bed under the covers – my safe place … The 'squeaks and snarls' of life, ours and others, need to be listened to and analysed, otherwise what is the point? How else do we learn to accept ourselves and this huge wonderful, difficult, complex and precious life we have been given?" Belinda had a practical tip: a New Zealand-made fish oil and vitamin D supplement which keeps her "ageing body and mind in check". Email me if you'd like the details.