Ancient Adult Mythology

I love blogs like Pinterest fail and cake wrecks. Not only are they hilarious, if a bit cringeworthy, but they demonstrate the inevitability of life’s imperfection. Even when turning to a professional, one can’t be be assured of the outcome.

To me, these examples are just further evidence supporting my hypothesis that being an adult is actually just accepting that “an adult” doesn’t exist. The adult is a mythical being who magically balances working and life, while keeping an immaculate home and throwing picture perfect parties for their not neglected-because-I-am-to-tired-to-function friends.

This is who I keep expecting to morph into. One day I will wake up and realize I am An Adult.

Not so much.

And I thought I was pragmatic. Ha.

If I have learned anything in the past seven months (or so) it is that being an adult is waking up and going about your life. Some days will be miraculous and some days you will get home and have potato chips and skittles for dinner. Either way, when you wake up the next morning, you are still an adult.

My life at 26 is so different than what I always pictured it to be. But, lying in bed tonight, listening to my roommates try to quietly eat potato chips (impossible), having originally fallen asleep at 9:30 on a saturday night, all I could think about was how content I am.

The idea of extended adolescence or millennials putting off adulthood is as misconstrued as the myth of adulthood itself. Being an adult is just a byproduct of our creation of childhood in the midst of the industrial revolution, or teenagers in the 1950s. The common thread of all these constructs is the lessened expectation that you have it all figured out.

Which, honestly, applies to everyone, and if someone says they have it all they are lying.

This fairytale of adulthood dictates when a person is supposed to have their life figured out, what happiness looks like, and that at 26 I shouldn’t be calling my daddy for help when I can’t figure something out. It says that If I haven’t checked those boxes, then I can’t truly be  an adult.

Conversely, it implies that once someone is an adult they stop learning and growing, which is possibly the most laughable part of this whole conspiracy. When you stop learning and growing, you aren’t an adult, you are dead.

Instead, I call shenanigans. I can have lucky charms for dinner and stay home or go out or cook a gourmet meal or get married or get pets or have kids or be single or work or not, without compromising my status as an adult. And I can always call my daddy. Being an adult is accepting that adulthood is what you make of it, and it is nothing like the movies. or pinterest.

“And she lived happily ever after” is three words too long.

“And she lived” is much much better.

My house smells like feet

Confession: I don’t read blogs. I don’t even spend time on Facebook any more (other than to keep my mother updated on my whereabouts). Generally, I prefer to envy other peoples’ lives the old fashioned way, engaging in forced small talk while secretly plotting their humiliating demise, which is (of course) best done in person.

This lack of blog reading (the exception being maple leaf kitchen) allowed me to form lofty goals about what I would say in the blog I would someday have. And so, with images of deep, meaningful contributions to modern thinking dancing in my head, I blogged.

I promised myself that my blog would not be the recordings of my less than thrilling day to day life, but something elevated. Something deeper.

Of course, the reality is, my house smells like feet. I live with four other people, most of whom are actively athletic, and our washing machine has been broken (the new one came today!!!). This is reality. And who am I to try and rise above it?

Hopefully this blog will be entertaining and relatable while also offering up my unique view of the world. But somedays my house will smell like feet and my blog will detail my less than thrilling life. And that will be enough.