Adulting is .... Interesting

Hi all! Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! If it was anything like mine, you are still trying to repurpose your leftover turkey and stuffing- today, I made “paninis” out of everything I could find that would more or less go together in my fridge. If you’re interested in the “Sharon Post-Thanksgiving Panini”, feel free to hit me up (and have the rest of my Turkey while you’re at it).

I was MIA this past week because I was visiting my Alma Mater at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign. While I was there, I actually had a blog request…and you know I had to deliver. So this week, I am going to try to adult up enough to talk about adulthood- or better put, what being a college graduate is REALLY like.

This was actually my second time this semester – so the one thing I refuse to do is stop using the word semester; I will be calling it a semester until I have kids of my own going to school—visiting Champaign, and both times, I noticed one of the first things you all will as college graduates: once you graduate, you never visit your school feeling like a student again.

I was confident that as such an early graduate, visiting school would feel like I never left, and yet that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When I pulled up to school and saw guys playing beer pong outside of their apartments and throwing ice on the ground at bars, I kind of felt like I had aged ten years since last year, when there was nothing more fun than winning beer pong or getting super drunk trying. When I stepped into my sorority, I was confronted with an entire class of new members, a new executive board, and a whole host of new issues I did not or would not expect. Walking down green street presented new restaurants, and my friends had new people in their lives that I had never met. One of the weirdest revelations we all have is the one where we realize that when we move on to new parts of our lives, the page doesn’t turn for everyone. And sometimes returning to those chapters we leave behind can feel like the world has turned out from under us, because others keep leading the same lives and focusing on the same things.

The truth is that your early 20s post-graduation are the best example ever of “neither here nor there”. I can’t quite relate to my 30 year old coworkers who are planning family vacations and taking off for maternity leave, but college feels aways away too….and don’t even get me started on taking shots. I’ll stick to my one mikes hard with dinner, thank you very much.

So you’re left in this kind of weird fumble where you’re too put together for your college friends, too inexperienced for your coworker friends, too independent to rely on keeping in touch with people, and too dependent to forget about them altogether. Anyone who visits their college year after year but only on homecoming weekend knows exactly what I mean, but I doubt anyone ever really does until they hop on board the alumni train. A train that usually feels like it is going to nowhere, by the way.

So first let’s start with what feels different, or weird, or some advice about going into adulthood according to myself and others I’ve talked to about their least favorite parts of adulthood:

1.) You see your friends significantly, significantly less. Gone are the days where you could barely sleep because you heard them talking in the hallway, or where you wished for 30 minutes to cry alone in the shower. I just saw a friend last week whom I made plans next with for July 2023. As in, a full eight months away, and at least we’ve got something on the calendar.

2.) You have to live with like…real…life….consequences. I mean, I long for the days where doing bad things resulted in detention (not that I ever got this if you don’t count being actually sick on senior ditch day LOL) and getting grounded. College does teach you about natural consequences a little, but nothing sets you up for real life like getting your first apartment, your first car--- and if you really want an extra challenge, try moving to a new city. If you don’t clean, the dishes pile up. If you leave the door open on accident, the seattle winter will get you sick the next morning. Buy a bed from Ikea, and end up falling through it the next day (hmm… that may just be me). Forget to charge your computer and you’re late to work. Do nothing and you still get screwed over. I mean it is super weird to live with your own consequences every day. On a deeper note, adulthood teaches you that even the good decisions you make WILL have consequences. I think we romanticize black and white, perfect decisions where there is a 50 percent chance of living happily ever after, but that’s just not real life.

3.) Speaking of which, you begin to prioritize yourself. I think this is just a natural consequence of growing up, but since moving, I’ve learned to trust myself more than 99% of the population. I grew up super dependent on my parents, and then I lived with my high school best friend, and then I lived with 50 sorority girls. Living on my own, I finally get that I need to be watching out for myself. Which is a freaking hilarious thought since I lit my hair on a candle fire a few days ago.

4.) I need to get myself a cooking thermometer ASAP and Trader Joes is god. As much as I love cooking, I have always had some sort of unresolved trauma with raw chicken, so much so that when I was in London I used to cook my chicken by the 4x rule. According to this very-clearly made up rule, I would cook chicken four times as long as Google said to cook it. So when it said that it would be done after 10 minutes, I would- no jokes or sarcasm- cook it for 40. And when it was dryer than an actual dryer, that’s when I knew it was done. So adulthood is weird, and raw chicken is part of that. I bet you all wished you were as lucky as me and lived down the street from a TJ now, huh?

5.) Unfortunately, adulthood isn’t a magic trick that you wake up one day and have mastered. I remember in AP Pysch we learned that the brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25, and I think high school Sharon took that as a sign that on my 25th birthday, I would naturally have the ability to do no wrong. I looked at my parents and the other adults in my life as gods who had surpassed the golden age. While I haven’t hit that age yet, graduating college has made me realize there is no golden age where people just gain an immense amount od knowledge and are done maturing. We are all just figuring it out one day at a time.

6.) Over time, you become your parents. Yesterday, I was picking out dresses for NYE and my mom came over and we pointed to several options that she liked….and I Iiked them too?!?!? Sharing my mom’s style and my parent’s humor means that I guess I’ve graduated from the little kids table, I guess? I feel like I become my parents more and more with every waking hour since I graduated and I’m still not sure how I feel about it LOL.

7.) Speaking of which, if I wasn’t a phone over text person before, moving out has fully converted me into a phone person. I used to make fun of my mom calling everyone and their best friend while driving around, but now it isn’t me driving unless I’m listening to one of three things: Cascada, a crime podcast, or one of my friends ranting about life.

8.) Life without homework is awesome…but also a little weird? This one is mainly for us corporate girlies, but if you’re still in high school or college, get ready to get off work at 5 and wonder what comes next. Since it gets dark in Seattle by 3 during the winter, there is nothing left to do but run around on the treadmill contemplating life, make/eat/clean up dinner, and have an existential crisis daily watch a show that you don’t really care about but need to be addicted to for a semblance of routine. Because you no longer are proximate to all your best friends (see #1), you rarely hang out with people except during the weekends or when you get a bumble BFF notification (oh god).

9.) Milestones feel different and not as exciting. As someone who turned 21 and was probably one of the only people in the adulthood phase at the time, I feel like I can speak to how the things that used to be cool and interesting no longer seem that way. God that sounds depressing, but all I mean is that I no longer go to parties, I barely drink, and holidays feel weird now that its just the same bubble of the people you tolerate over and over again.

10.) And Ten- adulthood is exhilarating. Yeah, most of the list above is negative, but the one positive thing I can vouch for is that adulthood isn’t really one point that a person reaches, it’s discovering yourself and reinventing yourself every time you open your eyes in the morning. High school is one you, college is one you, but adulthood is as many you’s as you can imagine, without sounding too much like that serial killer from YOU. Own that.

My dad remarked to me today that I seem different lately, more independent and less reliant on other people. To me, it wasn’t that obvious, but then I realized that I have been living by myself in a new city for almost half a year. I don’t know if that’s something I will ever fully come to terms with, but it is this cool new period of my life I am figuring out, and that’s something we all do for ourselves. My dentist today also asked me if doing that has been difficult, and it took me a while to answer- not just because she was probing at my teeth with pointy objects (UGH I hate when dentists do that), but because there is no definitive answer.

After thinking on it and passing without cavities, I’ve decided adulthood IS hard. And it is because the mirror effect, that made up term from the sorority recruitment entry, comes back in a new form. Instead of being confronted with the purpose of life, we are now confronted with the meaningless of life. The question “who are you” becomes “who aren’t you” and instead of aligning our accomplishments, we’re aligning our expectations…with some pretty harsh and sudden realities. Our generation tends to romanticize life; we’re looking for the perfect job and perfect decade- which doesn’t exist, sorry guys☹

As one last metaphor, I always compare your twenties to the Great British Bake Off. Huh? Sharon’s metaphors have gone too far this time, you say. No, what I mean is that figuring life out after graduation is like the GBBO technical round. You never know how the recipe will go, and you enter in blind. Sometimes, there is no recipe and you have to make it up as you go. Everyone wants their end product to look the best, but also be the same…and as soon as yours begins looking different, you second guess yourself. The judges walk around the tent making faces as you explain your creation, just like society judging you from afar. The decoration and end of the recipe may be easy, but if you fuck up the first few steps (aka the first few years), then you’re royally fucked and you’ve just wasted 30 minutes (aka five years). And everyone knows there is nothing worse than underbaked pastry, unless its equivalent is an unfulfilling start to adulthood.

See, it’s thoughts like these that make your twenties scary, unprecedented, and weird. But if you choose to live your twenties like a choose your own adventure story, then those same thoughts can become exciting, or at least overlookable. Don’t give up and do push through, because like I said, none of us know what we’re doing, and if you haven’t lit your hair on fire in the past week, you’re one step ahead of me.