014 - On Being An Adult
Hi! How have you all been since we last touched base? So much has happened but also it feels like nothing really at all. Weird times. Weird feelings. Weird emotional landscape.
As I write to you today, my heart is heavy with emotions. Heavy towards the horrors unfolding in the world and heavy towards my own self. It feels strange to be celebrating and complaining about birthdays and yet there is a tragedy happening at the other side. How does one function as an adult and human being when there are so many things going on? And what does it mean to be an adult? Not to sound like a deflated meme, but adulthood is a big fucking joke. Even the word “adulting” is overused. I’m here on earth as a fully formed grown up woman who pays her taxes, and I’ve got to say, I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2020, adulting means “The action or process of becoming, being, or behaving as an adult; (now) esp. the carrying out of the mundane or everyday tasks that are a necessary part of adult life”. Referring to the completion of basic tasks as an “adult” sets a pretty low bar for what it means to be grown up, but honestly, our relationships with daily life are really challenging. We are living in a time of war, with socioeconomic and political turmoil, we are getting bombarded by the daily storm of anxiety-inducing news, we have witnessed death and violence and disaster in plain view, and at the same time we have to deal with our late-capitalist-inspired urge to be professional and personal productivity machines. On top of everything else, we still have to do domestic tasks like cooking, budgeting and grocery shopping. Is this what being an adult is all about? Is there more to life than all this?
Let me start by admitting some of the embarrassing evidence that a normally 30-something old woman knows how to do, but I don’t. First, I don’t know how to ride a bike. I don’t know how to drive a car. I don’t know how to swim. I don’t know how to change tires. I don’t know how to floss. I don’t know how to bake. I don’t know how to cook. Does that make me less of an adult? Maybe that makes me incompetent in certain things, that among the millions of lessons I consume as I claw my way into adulthood, I am missing a few. But I would like to think that I’m doing just fine.
At this age there are still a lot of things that I haven’t figured out yet. When I was a kid growing up, I saw my parents and I always thought here two adults who had all their shits together, who had answers to everything. However, now that I’m an adult myself, it occurred to me that nobody knows what they are doing, and they never have. All of us are just playing along, giving our best and hoping for a good thing.
The message about being an adult that we all know is to follow that traditional life path; meet someone, get married, buy a home, start a family. All while working your ass off, paying your bills on time, doing the laundry, cooking your own dinner, being an amazing friend, and having the perfect wardrobe. Not saying this is a bad thing, but not everybody holds an appeal towards the traditional rites of passage our parents and grandparents went through. All of us may not follow the same life path, as we don’t all share the same priorities and socioeconomic backgrounds. What may lead you to feeling fulfilled, be that through work, marriage, or starting a family, may leave another feeling dissatisfied. I also believe that we all live different lives and have different reasons for doing things.
Naturally, there’s a case to be made that age has never been a relevant measurement to determine where, exactly, we ought to be in our personal and professional milestones. I’m learning that adulthood is such a subjective concept and that in order to “achieve” it, we have to define it ourselves. I think adulthood is not a specific set of markers to achieve.
I think being an adult is simply being responsible for yourself, whatever you choose to do.
I think being an adult doesn’t necessarily mean having our shit together, or at least giving the appearance of it.
I think being an adult is to always be trying. Because life is about waves. It has highs and lows. All we get is moments, change, and opportunity.
I think being an adult is to keep going and keep dreaming and keep believing that, inevitably things will change for the better. They have to.
So happy birthday dear self, being an adult is weird but you are doing okay.
Until next time x