Being a Grown-Up is Hard

I’ve begun a giant “pull my life together” project, and as a result, I’ve been having trouble completing a blog post. I've been working on a few for weeks, because I know that writing is good for me, but pulling my life together as more activities enter it has been more draining than I realized. I’m having to relearn productivity, as well as attempt to master some basic skills of adulthood. Unfortunately, my body has yet to understand that I don’t actually need ten hours of sleep a night, that I’m still capable of multitasking, and that it’s possible to do more than five things on my to-do list a day. As I relearn that it’s possible to live with anxiety and daily pressures, my body twitches and shakes continually and my thoughts are constantly scattered.

Over the past week I’ve been throwing my brain into working on grad school applications (which make me nauseous), my emotions into listening to trauma stories on the hotline in the middle of the night (which also sometimes make me nauseous), and last night I told some of my story to a group of highschoolers (which I love, but is always draining). I’m also going through the endlessly high stack of unread mail on my table (completed-BAM), dealing with the consequences of not reading said mail (City of Boston, please don't actually issue a warrant for my arrest because I didn't pay a late fee on my parking ticket), and cleaning my apartment thoroughly. I’m both impressed at and incredulous of the speed and level at which I used to function, although having a constant stream of Taylor Swift playing in my head is helping me work on Operation Pull Your Shit Together, as it’s titled in my journal.

For whatever reason, I view adulthood as the ability to manage all of these tasks in my life well and therefore feel like I’m learning to be an adult. Not an over-eighteen-in-college adult, but an I-paid-my- bills-and-did-my-dishes-in-the-same-night adult.



Me, when I only had to worry about embroidered Scotty dog sweaters, not adulthood. (on right)


I failed at this yesterday. I ran out of gas on my way to an important meeting.

Massachusetts is unlike Texas in the fact that access roads do not run parallel to the highway with easily accessible gas stations in sight. Here, access roads twist and wind away from the highway, and when you find a gas station in a random city next to a Dunkin' Donuts (I would hypothesize that Dunkin' Donuts owns Massachusetts, due to its infestation of the entire region), you may be many miles out of your way. I was running late to this meeting, of course, and decided to assure myself that I had enough gas to get at least most of the way there rather than stop before I left.

As I was driving along the highway, my gas light went on. I began looking for a gas station, passed a few on the wrong side of the road, and eventually exited to find one a highway sign alluded to. Of course, once I exited the road, I could not find the mysterious gas station. Back on the highway, I told myself that cars rarely actually run out of gas, and I kept towards my goal, keeping an eye out for more stations. Then event Kathleen Fails at Driving #456 happened. Going seventy miles in the left lane, my car began to wheeze and slow at an alarming rate, and I was forced to suddenly put on my flashers and coast over multiple lanes onto the shoulder. I called triple A, missed my meeting, and mentally chastised myself for not being a responsible adult.

I decided to try to make myself feel better by making a list of “adult things” I do well and "adult things" I don’t. Surely, I thought, this will prove to me that I’m actually more responsible than I think. Here’s the result:

Clearly, this wasn't as reassuring as I had hoped, since the "Horrible at" list is longer than the "Good at" list. I suppose, from now on, I could just burst into Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" when entering a meeting or event late. Or, I could just move to a country where being late is the norm and people don't drive anywhere. Preferably the latter.