The title of this
blog might give it away, but honestly it's how I'm getting through life: I'm
really just faking it. I make it up as I go along and hope things turn out
okay!
I recently started
helping out with leading the Youth Group at my church. (They want someone
younger - and not anyone's parent - to be a "role model" for the
kids. And they picked me. I think it's crazy, too.) I'm not sure when, but at
some point I really think we might have to have a discussion about being a
Grown-up and how it never actually really happens. Like, I pay my bills on
time, yes, and have a functionally clean apartment (not spotless, but it'll
do). Technically, I am an adult. But… I don't feel like it.
No one tells you
when you're a kid that Adulthood isn't some magical state where you always know
exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, and all your problems can be easily
solved. (I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of it this way; I'd hit some
magic "adult" age like 20 or 25 and have everything figured out, life
would always make sense, I'd have all the answers. I'm pretty sure I felt like
I had more of the answers at 16 than I do now.) You just assume that you'll get
through school, get a job, and you'll be an Adult who can be totally
responsible and do Adult things and solve everyone's problems. (In retrospect,
that was a silly expectation, considering the number of times I thought adults
were doing a pretty shitty job of running things. But of course, I'd be a Real
Adult and never have those problems!) And then you achieve one goal, but no,
you're not really an Adult yet, you don't have a Big Kid job, you're still in
school. And then you finish grad school and know that you'll be an Adult when
you've got an apartment of your own. Except Real Adults have apartments that
are nicely furnished and decorated, and you've only got half the curtains up on
one set of windows (true story), so you clearly don't count yet. And you don't really
have responsibility for any living things yet (certainly not children, as that
would be terrifying, but not even a dog, just a snake, and that doesn't really
count because they're so low-maintenance) so clearly you're not a Real Adult.
And some days you don't do your dishes, and you haven't vacuumed in ages so
there is hair everywhere, and sometimes you don't even shower (let's not even
talk about the chocolate explosion that you still haven't cleaned off your car
seat), and Real Adults wouldn't have the sorts of problems with motivation that
you have. They might have lists a mile long of all the things they want to
do (like make a cool header for their blog, or finish hanging the curtains in
their living room, or actually clean their apartment, or alter some clothes
they picked up at the thrift store two years ago) except they actually do them.
Except that's
wrong. Because (alright, I could be wrong about this too) I think we all just
spend our lives kind of blindly groping our way toward our next goal,
pretending like we're super-productive Real Adults who can Do It All and Have
It All and still get enough sleep. (And some of us will actually admit to
pretending.) I, for one, would just like to acknowledge that I'm a Real Person, just a silly little human who makes
mistakes and doesn't know everything and is just trying to get through my life
and maybe improve myself a little bit, if I'm lucky that day. I'm getting
better at forgiving myself for not living up to my own ridiculous expectations;
I am me and if sometimes that means the
only thing I accomplish in a day is making a lunch to take to work then that is
enough, I am enough, and I can try again
tomorrow to be a better version of me, but if I don't succeed tomorrow I can
try again the next day and all the days after that.
So I think we should start telling kids that
growing up never really ends. You never really become a Real Adult because we
think of Real Adults as capable of doing All the Things! And no one can ever do
that. (Certainly not me.) And if we can admit that to ourselves, and forgive
ourselves for that, then maybe we can admit that about other people and forgive
them and end up living in a kinder, gentler world. Which would be nice.
