Over the past two years I have been slowly easing my way into the grown-up, adult world and so far it has been easy to adjust to. But, recently I have turned twenty and now I have flung myself semi-full force into being an “adult” and I have figured out now that being an adult is really hard and sometimes not all it has cracked up to be. Our parents make it look so easy and they fool you into thinking that adulthood is amazing. I like to pretend that I have my life together but I'm really on the hot mess express the majority of the time as you can see in the picture above.

My best friend and I have recently moved into an apartment that we will be staying in the rest of our college career and we now like to consider ourselves “adults.” Yes, it feels amazing to be on my own and paying rent and acting like a big girl but, I have had to adjust my lifestyle in pretty dramatic ways. I am a dedicated fast-food eater and I have now learned that if you have a kitchen with an oven and stove, you should use it to cook instead of going through the drive-thru. But believe me, this is harder than it seems. My favorite place to eat at in the entire world is Chick-fil-a and recently it has taken all of my will-power to not stop and get a Combo #5 Eight count chicken nugget meal with a large fry and large sweet tea and Chick-fil-a sauce every time that I pass one of those beautiful establishments. This is only one of the many sacrifices I have had to make to make sure that I have money when it comes time to pay bills.

Being an adult means that you have to work, a lot. That’s another thing that I have found hard to do is telling people that I have to work so I cannot come hang out or I can’t come visit. All of my friends except for a few live away from where I live so it is hard to go from seeing them everyday to maybe seeing them once or twice a month and with working all the time it makes it extremely hard to go and see them. So far this summer it feels like all I have done is work but, I am proud of myself for making my own money and not relying on my parents for all of my wants and needs.

Last week I was staying at a friend’s house who is a recent college graduate and is also trying to figure out what it means to “adult,” when one morning her mother called me and said, “Caitlin, is Jessica not going to work today? I saw her car was still in the driveway.” So, I got up and went and woke Jessica up and after I told her it was 8:30am and she jumped out of bed and yelled “Crap!” She was already thirty minutes late to work at her “big girl job” and still had get ready and drive there. So this is just another luxury of the adult life that I’ve had to experience, waking up early and making sure you're on time. Yes of course you get up early for classes and everything but nobody wants to wake up early during what use to be their summer vacation. Jessica is also getting married in September so she is figuring out adulthood while planning a wedding and establishing a household. But, she did just make her first “big-girl” purchase and bought herself a new car!

The most difficult thing I’ve had to do is learning self-control when it comes to buying clothes, shoes, watches, and purses. I’ve been avoiding all shopping malls and when I am tempted into one I only look for things that I need and avoid all the things that I want. I am a very spontaneous person when it comes to shopping I usually just buy whatever I want so, shopping is very dangerous to my adult lifestyle. But, if I do happen to find something I want and it just happens to be on sale for a good price then I might splurge on it. But, that only happens if I know I have a little extra money to spend.

So, yes “adulting" may be hard but it does feel so good when you are able to do stuff on your own. I also find myself getting excited about much different things now. I was really happy when I bought couch and love seat covers for my living room in my apartment and I know for a fact that this time last year, I would not have been excited about couch covers. I’m also obsessed with looking at our eating area in our apartment because it is so dang cute. Growing up is both an exciting and challenging experience. Somedays you are really killing the adult thing and then others you just want to sit and cry because you think you're not going to be a successful human being because you can’t adult. But, I know that in the end all of the blood, sweat, and tears will pay off and I’ll be able to run my own household and be an “adult.”