You always hear it on not-that-funny romcoms, or TV shows,trying to prove that they're funny because the characters, who are clearly fully grown, aren't actually adults. They'll have a joke, or a dialogue, or even a whole scene, dedicated to how much they hate the word "adulting". They'll talk about how there's really nothing different, and how saying that they're adults only makes them feel old.
I respectfully disagree. Being an adult has nothing to do with age. In fact, almost nothing in life does. It's about mentality. I feel like in some areas of my life, I am an adult. I catch the bus back home at the end of the day trying to remember if I took the chicken out of the freezer for dinner; if I have time, I'll wash all the dishes in the sink whenever it starts to accumulate; and I always make sure to eat at least 3 fruits a day whenever possible. In most aspects of my life, I think and act like and adult, because I've had to.
However, in whatever areas I don't have to, I fight it as much as I possibly can. At school, I sometimes walk around barefoot on the first floor, even though I've been told off before; unless I'm working, I avoid sitting in chairs "normally"; in rehearsal, I always take my dramatic side over the top, and make unnecessary jokes that put us way behind schedule, just to get a few laughs. In a lot of aspects of my life, I allow myself to be childish, because I've had to.
If I could spend the rest of my life falling asleep on the couch and magically waking up in my bed, I would. If I never had to make chocolate milk for myself, and could instead have my mom do it, in whatever way it is that moms do that just tastes so much better, I would. If I could go to fancy restaurants and not be expected to just sit still for 2 hours, but instead, wander over to the playground and run around, I think I would. Maybe.
But those who do face life head on, whether it be at 15 when living alone for the first time, or at 40 when their parents throw them out of the basement, it's not usually something we choose. It's something that comes from the choices we make.
"Not everything comes along just when we want it. There are times when decisions just have to be made, or you certainly will miss out." That line is from one of my favorite movies, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and I think it perfectly represents what "adulting" is. We carve our path through life from the choices we make, and those
choices require certain behaviors from us, and whether we accept those
or not is what determines if we are "adulting".
In order to fully be adults, we have to choose to accept the responsibilities. Don't make me quote Spider-man, but Uncle Ben had a point. I accept that parts of me are adult-like, because I made a choice to live without my mom, and that required me to grow up. And while I never chose to be an adult, I accepted it as the "Terms and Conditions" for other decisions in my life.
So if you want to spend your life just going out drinking with your buddies and talking about how much you "hate this adult life," that's up to you, but that is not "adulting". That is living out a sitcom, where no one ever goes to work, but they all have fancy apartments and great food all the time. However, if I have to learn to separate white clothes from colored ones in order to get where I want to go, then I will.
I love the Uncle Ben reference and the "Terms and Conditions." What you say is so true too.
ReplyDeleteThis post is very deep. I feel like you successfully got your point across concisely without making the reader feel like you were rushing to sum things up. What do you mean by "...I allow myself to be childish, because I've had to"?
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you picked up on that! That was a little detail I wanted to put in there, because sometimes we just HAVE to be childish to let counterbalance our responsibilities. It's like saying you just HAD to take a nap today because it was a tough day.
DeleteYour voice comes through so clearly in this! Also you make a really good point that when we need to be adults in some parts of life it is important to find places to be childish and have fun and appreciate those moments because we don't always get to choose when they happen.
ReplyDeleteI really love this post! I think it's a fantastic point you make that it's absolutely not age what determines that you are an adult, but what choices you make in your life. I wonder if anyone can really be considered an adult, because that word is a really loaded word, and I believe that everyone in the world does things that are considered more childlike.
ReplyDeleteThis is a thoughtful post, and I love that it manages to be both "deep" and lighthearted at the same time. I think one thing that comes through in your post is that the very idea of "adulting" arises from young people who've grown up with considerable privilege or one variety or another. The majority of kids on this planet don't get to choose whether they'll take on responsibility––it's thrust on them by circumstance. To have enough money, to have two parents in the home, to have any parent at home who has enough free time to cater to you and/or take care of your younger siblings, these are just a few of the situations that kids naturally take for granted when they've known no other life. But I think a real sign of being an adult is being able to understand how different various people's circumstances are in life and the extent to which that has made one's own road to adulthood more or less laden with responsibility.
ReplyDeleteYah I 110% agree with you on the idea that it'a not your age that determines whether or not you're an adult. At the end of the day, age is just a number. They're are plenty of supposed "kids" out that that are quite mature even though they're quite young. This reminded me of a story I heard about a five-year-old girl who became the sole carer of her grandma and great-grandma after her father was jailed and her mother remarried. She is 100% an adult in my eyes, and is even more of an adult than many middle aged people are.
ReplyDelete