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.

Becoming Zen Hasn’t Actually Solved All of My Life Problems, or Why Missing Buses Can Teach You More than Having Friends (maybe-sometimes)

My coworker stopped by my office this morning and asked me how my weekend was (she’s a social worker and reminds me of my mom, so I’m naturally inclined to like her). I responded that it was noncommental and I didn’t do much. She commented that the weather had been beautiful. I know this, but regretfully, I have no firsthand experience of this rare phenomenon of “beautiful” Massachusetts weather. This is because the sun now sets at 4:30 PM, and I was unable, much to my shame and defeat, to rouse myself enough to make it outside this weekend while it was still daylight- although I did crack a window.

I think I’ve already mentioned how zen I’ve become after moving. This is not so much out of desire as necessity. My mind is a slightly obnoxious constant tape of positive affirmations (or, as my friend and I call them thanks to the amazing book, Wintergirls, magic incantations).  I spend a lot of time thinking things like “You don’t need to worry about that [insert issue here] because you will make the right decision when the time comes. You know what is best for yourself. You have made good decisions for yourself in the past and will do so in your future.” This is an often incanted one. Another recent favorite is, “Even though this (feeling or experience) isn’t pleasant, it is an opportunity to reach a greater understanding of the wealth of human experience.” That’s more reframing than affirming, but you get the idea.

I suppose I could also look in the mirror on the mornings/afternoons/evenings I’m barely moving and self-affirm, “You’re resting. Give yourself some time, this rest is for you.” However, this would be a lie, because I don’t rest. Resting is not pleasant. Typical Kathleen Stewart is the embodiment of positive-excitement-energy, always telling everyone that we-must-do-this-one-thing-right-now-because-it-will-be-so-fun-and-possibly-life-changing(!) That’s not to say that I never have slumps. If positive Katy is gung-ho and enthusiastic, negative Katy is waiting around the corner to spend a few days in bed crying because children in the world are starving and there is the teensiest possibly that her thus far non-existent children will go through something awful and bad themselves one day in the far future. The people who love me have learned to live with the extremes, to run with me when I’m elated and to hold me when the world makes me feel broken.

I can handle this about myself. I’ve had the practice. What I haven’t practiced is dealing with a Katy who is wearing a permanent crater in her bed as she channels endless television seasons on Netflix. I logically feel that this isn’t good headspace, but I also don’t exactly feel terrible about it. Until it gets dark at 4:30. Then I hate the world and I feel terrible. It’s like the sky is determined to scream failure at me.



Zen Katy

I’m extremely good, not only well-habituated, at this self-affirming thing thanks to numerous years of forced practice.  I once thought that when I reached this point of positivity in my life everything would just be magically fantastic. Like my ability to deep breathe would just result in a serene essence of being that would envelop my life and result in blessed solitudeandoneness with myself and the earth. This hasn’t happened. I’m all about self-affirmation-so about it-but the reality of life is that sometimes you can be your own best cheerleader until your metaphorical mental pompoms are shredded, but things may still be kind of shitty at the end of the day. Not a lot a bit shitty (right now), just fairly exhausting in the knowledge that things really could be quite a bit better. It’s not the best time in my life.
 

"Whatever" Katy

One contribution to it not being the best time in my life is a situation thrust upon me by some of the few people I’ve met here. I’m being indirectly bullied at worst, misrepresented publically to a group of people who don’t know me at best.

I’ve never been bullied in my life.

I’m just not interesting enough. I’ve always been pretty enough, smart enough, nice enough, to be mostly left alone- even if I did have an unusual amount of bible knowledge I had no problem expressing in youth group as I steadily knitted a giant blanket in high school.

Something like this.


I’m fairly good about standing up for people who are being picked on, but not weird enough to be picked on in turn. Now that I’m in my twenties, I thought that although everyone supposedly goes through the experience of being bullied and gossiped about at some point in life (even Taylor Swift, or so she says), it was an experience I was simply lucky enough to miss having.

Wrong.

When I first moved up here, I almost immediately met a group of people I thought would befriend me right away. They were funny, they were interesting, and I seemed liked in the group.

Then there was this girl.

She’s funny, cute, and engaging. She’s the kind of person people are immediately attracted to. She was one of the first people I talked to and hung out with, and I liked being with her. We disagreed on what we felt the nature and importance of our relationship to each other was, and as she is a flighty person who flits between friends and allegiances, we stopped hanging out. I thought that was basically it, an almost-friendship that just didn’t happen and was meant to be mourned then brushed away.

I later found out that she was blatantly lying about me to her coworkers (the entire group of people I had met), exaggerating the truth of what had happened to save face. People stopped texting me; I stopped being invited to hang out with them as a group. I’m grateful for the few but amazing friends I have made up here, who have spent time with me and gotten to know me anyway, and who were genuine enough to tell me the truth about what’s going on. Zen Katy appreciates this experience as an opportunity to weed out the people not really worth being friends with anyway. “Whatever” Katy is completely and utterly over it. Also, her feelings are hurt.

Albeit, I’ve had a few awkward and perhaps less than classy exchanges with this girl since, but, I mean, I’m 22. We all have our unclassy and less-than-prudent moments. What blows my mind is that this girl has begun to lead what one of my thus far closest friends in lovely MA dubbed “an anti-Katy brigade.” Really? Are we 12? Would that be okay, even if we were 12? No. No it would not. I know that in these people’s minds, I’ve been painted to be slightly psychotic and definitely not worth getting to know, but…but still.

However, self-obsessed as it may sound, I still can’t believe that myself, as someone who has always been enough, is suddenly unnecessarily being actively gossiped and lied about on a fairly long term basis. It makes me lose faith in humanity a little bit. It makes me lose trust in people for failing to see people who treat others poorly as insensitive and dramatic when first getting to know them. I’m tired of being “worth” gossiping over, although I know that really isn’t the situation. I have high doubts the occurrence is terribly personal. I’m simply known well enough for the talk to be interesting, but not well enough for tainting my name to actually matter.

I’m tired of trying to make friends. I expected that as an adult, this would be a matter of simply clicking or not clicking with someone. I know that I’m a good person and a good friend (zen Katy self-talk!), but I’m tired of trying to determine the same about others. Outwardly, I’ve expressed my disdain and unconcern for the entire situation. Inwardly, I’m hurt.

Poor me. I know I know I know my life is just so hard. Not. I’m unable to motivate myself to keep trying to meet people, or do the dishes (every single dish I own is dirty-it’s pathetic), or sometimes wash my hair (I just went a week without washing it-“whatever” Katy would like to remind your judging self how few people see me anyway). However, before you write me off as a lost cause or feel sad about my pathetic shortcomings at normal-Kathleen-functionings these days, let me reassure you that I have found at least a small amount of emancipation in my current state: the difficulties of forming new relationships and living up here in general have helped me to find redemption in the little things.

Random and mundane moments have inexplicably started to bring me joy, sometimes to the point of misty eyes and more zen reflections. Moments like sitting on my porch in cold weather wrapped in a blanket and nestling up to the space heater while holding a vegan chai tea and journaling. Moments like walking out of the local school and being grateful for a country in which I can vote. Moments like 7 hours on the phone with my best friend, one of the few people in the world whom I know loves me totally and unconditionally.

I would probably die without her.

Moments like the first snow of yesterday, when I rushed outside in my pajamas to dance around my yard in the middle of the night and marvel at the fact that I live in a world where something as beautiful as falling snow exists. This morning, when I discovered the buses aren’t running today and I had to walk a mile and a half back to my house to drive the car I can’t afford to put gas in, I actually thought, “I’m glad I have legs to walk home with!” These minor and futuristically hilarious unhappy situations are making me more grateful in general.

In the chaos of loneliness and hibernating dreams and recklessness and impatience and uncertainty, I know that these hope-filled instants are formulating memories and weaving together experiences during this fragile time in my life. One day, I suspect I will look back at this period and remark on it as a great learning experience or something equally as cheesy, as I mumble wise things to my grandchildren with a grey braid over my shoulder. Until then, I hope to crawl out of bed long enough to feel something rather than apathy, whether motivated by snow or work or the promise of sunshine.

I’m eternally grateful for these moments of youth and yearning that are melding together the pieces of my life, one that I sometimes feel is slipping out of my hands as I try to keep it together.

I’m unsure what the summarizing statement or wrapping-up topic of this blog post should be, but I think there are enough life lessons in there for you to garner one for yourself. If you can’t, deep-breathe and practice self-acceptance. Sometimes, that’s all we can do.