Enough Adulting

I’m tired of adulting. It’s exhausting. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s the constant state of having to be responsible. And it’s wearing me out.

I guess I’m finding it more challenging than usual to maintain my license to adult because I’m working on losing weight and finding solutions for my pain, and at the same time attempting to determine the way to be truly happy. This trifecta of goals is a lot to do, a great deal of pressure for one earthy being to put one oneself. But I feel that if I don’t do these things now, when will I accomplish them? When I’m 65? 77? 89? I’m 55, for the love of Pete (and I do love Pete because he’s my brother, but I digress). My life, if we are to believe what those who keep track of such things as life expectancy tell us, is half over. That’s really scary. In my mind, I’m about 28, wandering aimlessly with my whole life in front of me.

But half of my life is indeed behind me. Half of my time here is over, and most of it has been spent adulting. When I was a young just-out-of-college kid, I got onto the hamster wheel of adulting. I worked, I paid the bills, I raised a furry child, I cleaned my apartment, I did my laundry, I visited my parents every week. I did all the stuff necessary to be a good adult. Then I got married and started a different type of adulting, this time with a partner. After we stepped onto the marriage hamster wheel, there were certain aspects we could share. We do many of our adult things together, or at least as a good tag team. We parent the furry children together and tag team the laundry. We visited my parents together and tag team the dishes.

It’s all normal. It’s all the way it has to be. Much as I would like to, I can’t stay home and sleep all day—I have to go to work. I can’t let the laundry pile up—I’ll run out of clothes. As Elizabeth Gilbert said, “This is a world, not a womb.” I was born, I grew up, and now I must adult. Every single day. No matter how much I whine or rail against it, the sun will come up and I will have to get up, get dressed, and go out into the world. It would be so nice to live in Key West, get up at around 11, while away the hours walking the sun-drenched streets and beaches, then settling in to watch the gorgeous sunset. That would be nice.

Oh well, it’s time to start adulting once more. I’ve got this thing going on today called “work.” Ugh.