Last week I became a grown up.

After years of carrying around my driver’s license in my back pocket, streaking the laundry red because I forgot to remove the tube of lipstick from my front pocket and losing my keys and sunglasses everywhere, I finally bought a purse. I tried for years to go without one. They were too girly. Targets for theft. Too conventional. Too easy to forget in a bathroom.

But after losing my wallet twice in one month, and having it returned to me sheerly through the kindness of strangers, I decided the world might not be such a bad place after all, and it was high time I get a real wallet instead shoving my receipts and ID into my tattered neoprene eyeglass holder. It was time to grow up.

Real women wear purses.

Also, I thought, what a great time to learn to simplify! Take only what fits in the purse! It’s streamlined! It’s little! It’s cute!

I packed it with my new wallet, my keys, my makeup bag, my comb, my iPod, my checkbook, my sunglasses, my…. Hmmmm… there’s no more room in here. O.k. I’ll use my key ring to attach my keys to the outside, hook my water bottle to my purse strap, hang my running shoes off of the purse handles, strap my lunch bag to other purse handle… and viola! A vomiting suitcase.

I formally surrendered this morning when I put my purse inside of my huge orange “Running Away From Home” Bag. Along with my running gear and shoes, lunch, knitting project, book for the bus ride, magazine for the bus ride (in case I finish reading my book and need reading material for the final six minutes of the bus ride, because dear GOD what if I have nothing to read for six whole minutes?!) cell phone and second knitting project (see reason for packing magazine). For the record, I spent the entire bus ride staring blankly out of the window, taking in the quiet calm of the morning ride and remembering that I forgot to both eat breakfast and brush my teeth.

I guess I am not quite a grown up after all.