If I had to pick the most difficult skill to master it would have to be what I call “The Art of Adulting.” Congratulations you’re an adult! You can go to war, vote and get called upon for jury duty. Except, if you’re like me you tend to categorize people as either adults or “adultier adults” aka someone who has the grown up routine down. Hopefully, your parents fall into that latter category. You may think you’re an adult because you are technically of legal age living it up in college. However, until you can pay your bills and actually complete all of the tasks piling up on your checklist, you’ve still got some serious work to do. It’s okay though because the great thing about college is that you get four years to figure it all out as best as you can. So, don’t stress about your inability to adult properly just yet because college is like the blind leading the blind into the gates of adulthood. Plus, it’s fun.
That being said, every time I realize that legally I am considered a full-functioning adult, it feels like a huge slap in the face. Scratch that, it actually feels like someone just informed me that I will now never know the ending of my favorite TV show because it just got cancelled (tragic, I know). Okay, a little dramatic, but clearly I see the process of becoming an adult as a confusing, slightly traumatizing endeavor. It’s hard to consider yourself of adult status when you still dance around the house in your underwear and consider buying a vegetable a truly sophisticated act. Honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out this adult thing since I graduated high school, and while I think I have the drown yourself in coffee every morning and constantly feel exhausted for no reason part down, I still struggle with some of the major components of adulthood.
1. Laundry.
When I think of laundry, I picture the giant pile of clothes and towels suffocating a certain corner of my closet. It’s scarier than any nightmare I have ever had, and worst of all it keeps coming back into my life even when I think I finally conquered it. The weird thing about laundry is when I eventually force myself to do it, I realize it’s actually a fairly easy process. Plus, rolling around in towels straight from the dryer is an instant way to cheer yourself up. Yet, I still let the monstrous tower grow for weeks, going so far as to buy new clothes before washing old ones from time to time.
2. Budgeting Money.
I don’t think you can be an adult when you spend any amount of money on sushi and queso, but when it comes to buying something you desperately need like a new toothbrush or toilet paper because your roommate will strangle you if you steal hers again, you put it off because you “just don’t have the cash for it.” Although college has taught me how to live off of four bucks for an entire week, which may or may not be a valuable skill, I still manage to spend all of my money on something I will devour in about 2.5 seconds.
3. Scheduling Appointments.
Wow, my roots are probably three inches long. Oh, I have had this cough for about a month now. Mm, I’m pretty sure I have a cavity. These are just some thoughts I will have every now and then, thoughts, which are supposed to cause me to schedule necessary appointments, like the ones my mom used to schedule for me. However, I’m not very good at the process of scheduling them. I’ll usually just put it off until whatever the issue is becomes a prominent problem in my life.
4. Basic Health/Wellness.
Most adults I know follow the paleo, gluten free trend and make sure to hit up all the Pilates classes they can get in one week. While I may have the daily uniform of cute workout clothes down, the only juice cleanse I go on is one that considers wine as juice, and my exercise regiment is currently limited to the several flights of stairs I walk up every day to reach my final destination (aka my bed).
5. A Normal Sleep Schedule.
I’m either up until 5 A.M. frantically pulling all-nighters or FINALLY getting that ride home from Pluckers, or I slip into a comatose like state for three days straight. A normal, healthy nine hours of sleep at a reasonable time is not currently a reality for me. I am actually confused by people who tuck themselves in promptly at 9 P.M., wake up for that crack of dawn spin class and need nothing more than an herbal tea to jumpstart their day. I’m convinced these are the same people who advocate for asparagus water and cross fit, but that’s another issue. Anyway, I don’t believe I can call myself a true adult until I have some form of a sleep schedule going for me.
6. Cooking Skills.
I burned my instant oatmeal last week, so that’s as far as I go in the domestic sphere. I would like to host a dinner party where I didn’t just order a few pizzas and pair it with champagne for a “fine dining” touch, but sadly the stove, the oven and even the microwave have all joined together and conspired against me.
7. Relationships.
Okay, now I’m not saying you have to have a relationship to be an adult, but I believe knowing how to handle another person and just feelings in general is a skill many adults possess. This is not a skill I plan on achieving until much later in life when I hopefully will have learned how to manage myself better, and can therefore attempt to worry about someone else. For now, the only committed relationship I can handle is the one I have with my Netflix account. We go on a date every night, and it will never try to call me “baby girl.”
8. Basic Communication.
Responding to e-mails, returning phone calls and checking my voice-mail are all very basic forms of communication that I consider a colossal struggle. Adults are typically good at staying in touch with colleagues, acquaintances, etc. I, on the other hand, ignore my inbox until it hits at least 10,000 unread messages and have not checked my voicemail since 2007.
So, maybe you’re not an adult yet either, or at least you’re not the “adultiest” of the crew, but hey they say the best people are always young at heart. Plus, you only get so many years of screwing up until people stop tolerating it as much. You’ll figure out all the tedious tasks of adulthood eventually, and if not you’ll just keep putting it off until you’re forced to Google “How to Unclog a Toilet” or “How to Cook Scrambled Eggs,” and in that millennial do or die moment, Google will be like your Yoda and you will be forced to move just an inch closer to full fledged grown up status.
Overall, the ride to adulthood is the most crowded, bumpiest struggle bus on the planet. Sometimes you’re so carsick you just want to puke out the window, and other times you’re jamming out to your favorite song, speeding down the highway in the fast lane. Whatever the case, adulthood is quite the adventure.
