Ahh, adulting. Don’t we all just love it? Endless responsibilities, thankless days, early nights, and early mornings. There are clearly some things that you need to do before you are a REAL adult. We know them: live on your own, have a job, pay your own bills, get married, have a kid, etc, etc. But there are a lot of little things that we tend to overlook on our way to those big steps in life. Here are eight small things you need to do before you can be considered a real adult.
1. Washing dishes on a regular basis.
So I am going to make the assumption that we have all washed a dish at least once in a blue moon. However, I didn’t really feel like an adult until I had to wash my own dishes in my dorm room whenever I needed a clean one (which is often). Washing dishes in the bathroom sink is so tedious and makes me wish I had an endless supply of bowls in my room.
2. Walking around a city without an adult.
When we are kids, we don’t go anywhere without our parents, especially not the big city. “That’s dangerous. You are going to get killed. Or stolen. Or worse, mugged!” But there comes a point in life when we all have to venture out into the great unknown (such as Manhattan). There is something about the freedom of wandering the streets on your own that makes you feel like a full-grown person.
3. Taking a bus on your own.
I have taken the bus many a time. Since I live in Connecticut and go to school in Pennsylvania, freshman year was chock full of bus rides back and forth. All of those buses inevitably stopped in the Port Authority. Let me say, if you don’t know what you are doing in the Port Authority, you are out of luck, my friend. It was definitely an experience though and figuring it out on my own was a challenge I didn’t think I was going to be able to conquer.
4. Doing your own laundry on a regular basis.
Laundry, like washing the dishes is tedious and not a fun activity for most. This is kind of a bonus one because when you are doing laundry in college (and I assume also at a laundromat) it is not as easy as just throwing in your laundry and pushing a button. There are a lot of steps. For me this entails getting cash out of the ATM, going somewhere I can get someone to break a twenty, finding a quarter machine so I can turn my smaller bills into change, and only then can I begin the process of washing my laundry. The struggle is real.
5. Writing a check.
If you have never written a check before, I swear it is like a foreign language. I don’t care if you think in this day and age with credit cards and chip readers and fancy apps that you will never need to write a check. Believe you me, eventually you will need to write a check. Better to learn now before you are out in the real world and someone is awkwardly staring at you while you try to remember how to write numbers out as full words.
6. Eating at a real people restaurant and paying your own check.
You have spent your whole life eating out with your parents and never having the impulse to reach for the check. I’m sure you’ve gone out with your friends to Applebees, Mickey-D’s, or Panera, but now here you are handing over your credit card to a waiter in a white button down who calls you Miss. You look down at the check and you have just signed off on paying more than $25 on one meal for yourself. It is definitely not the fun part of being an adult, but something almost everyone will experience. You will definitely feel like an adult, just maybe a broke adult at first.
7. Cooking yourself a meal from scratch.
Frozen dinners, easy mac, and mom’s home cooking are great, but eventually you are going to be out in the real world and want a good meal without the money or desire to get take out again. The knowledge of how to cook basic things like rice and stir-fry without setting off the smoke detectors will go a long way when you have a place to yourself. Bonus: learning how to bake from scratch is not necessarily essential but it is rewarding and delicious.
8. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment yourself.
No one likes talking on the phone, it is a proven fact. If you do enjoy talking on the phone with strangers then there is something off there, but never mind that. True adulting is calling your doctor yourself in order to set up an appointment. It is awkward and you may need to write yourself a script in order to make sure you get in everything you need to say, but there is a sense of accomplishment that comes with doing this on your own.
