Adulthood

This week, it’s a bit of personal reflection on adulthood. I hope you like it.

Adulthood, hey. Sometimes it feels like a puzzle that is impossible to solve.

For me, plenty of the adult things came early, I could cook, organise and manage things like the child-like adult I was at age 12. The things that seemed adult-ish to others, I could do in my sleep, act like an adult, talk like one, be part of the adult world. But I think the practical things, while useful, don’t make it easy to handle adulthood. Maybe on the surface it does, but not when you get into the weeds, the why, the heart of it, of yourself, it’s not easy. You can delude yourself into thinking things are all good, you can handle the world. But the issues creep up, they seep through the cracks of your life.

There’s no roadmap, you’re just blindly trying to make it work, find a way forward. The space is vast.

Finishing high school, is like those nature documentaries where turtles are left to cross the beach alone into the ocean only days after hatching, but delayed some 16-18 years. The danger of the birds coming to get the turtles, the cliff, it’s all in your own head. It’s a huge subconscious, mental shift.

Is it that we live in a world with so many rules, and such a specific way of living for 18 years, that coping with the vastness of your choices in adulthood feels impossible. So it’s easy to be a conveyer belt animal; following the herd, following the guidance of “adults”. The “adults” are often following what other people told them, and are so often less adult than you. It’s ironic; Age is really not always wisdom.

It takes a lot to peel yourself off the path, the everyday line of thinking, to move in a way that is specific to you and your life, to be intentional. It’s so easy to let the current to take hold of life.

Living with the unknowns, and accepting them is hard. Hard but necessary. I’ve opened myself to a whole new world of them, quitting my job, recovering, and feeling blind in trying figure out some of the pathway. And yet it is still terrifying, it is still maddening and scary.

Maybe that’s the real part of adulthood; accepting those deep unknowns, and still going ahead. Knowing that you can never be sure, and that you won’t have your hand held anymore. Even with people sitting, and supporting you. The decisions, the consequences, they are all on you; but there’s also huge power in that. You get to do anything you want. It starts whenever you grow into that mindset; it’s learning how to use it, to exist with that and move forward.

I’m learning you can’t avoid the hard things. To be the adult, the one I want to be, you have to keep moving through the difficult stuff, and having your head in the clouds isn’t a life choice that will ever satisfy.

Walking alone doesn’t have to be lonely; when you meet people that have the same values, same ideas as you, or simply the inescapable feeling of vibing with another person, there’s something so powerful about that. It makes everything better.

The hardest things are in the day to day, the nitty gritty details of the mundane and every day. Doing what you want is terrifying, and it’s also a slog. The things you want, they require hard work, less shiny activities. Setting yourself up for success is trying, and trying again. I appreciate the ability to change up my day, my life. To be in control of my time, to be truly responsible to myself. But it’s not easy. Even when you know this, it doesn’t stop the doubt, the panic, the tidal wave of different feelings.

Accepting the rising panic, the fears, and continuing. Now that is powerful. That is strength.

Trying each day to move forward, inch by inch, hour by hour, that has to be enough. Knowing you’re doing the work and not always seeing or feeling the results.

It is hard, adulthood. I think the hard journeys though, they can really be worth it because playing it safe isn’t enough. At least not for me.