What We Have Going for Us
There are a few things people forget to tell you.
Each year of your twenties is worth three in regular time. The decade moves like dog years except that in the end you suddenly turn 30 as if you didn’t just age a single lifetime. Something happens between the ages of 20 and 25. This is your first go-round as an adult. Your brain shifts and closes and hardens like the soft spot on an infant’s skull. You try harder. You begin to stand up on those baby deer legs and learn how to carry yourself in challenging situations. You eventually grow into a human who is brave enough to wake up before brunch is over, and offices start answering phones with “good afternoon” instead of “good morning.” You’ll never quit being an animal, however.
Around 25 or 26 you will decide to really feel the rain on your skin. It may hurt. By this time, you have already made the big move from your parents’ nest. You’ll look around, survey your life and decide what to carry with you. Who to carry with you. This is the first time you let go of living life by reaction.
Make a list every morning of the smallest expectations. Note each item with a box, not a bullet. Draw an“X” inside each box after completing its corresponding task. This will give you a sense of accomplishment greater than simply striking through. Today you will email the last flagged address in your inbox. Today you will buy handsoap. You will end the night with a single window’s width of tabs open in your browser. You will sleep. It’s OK to add completed items in retrospect, if only to record your performed adulthood.
We are not so mysterious. If you want to get to know someone infinitely better, meet their parents for five minutes. We are attracted to people who were loved in the ways we were loved as children. We are attracted to people who are lacking in ways we understand.
We are all terrified to take our clothing off and equally eager to show our genitals to each other. Do not be so afraid. We tell people we love them when we are unprepared. When we don’t mean it. When we’re drunk. When we’re sober but filled with so many delicious chemicals in our infant skulls standing on our baby deer legs naked in the dark that we may as well be drunk.
Mostly, your relationships will end. You will hold people close to you with the knowledge that everyone is on a timeline. That everyone’s heart will eventually stop beating. Most of the time, though, things will not be this grim. If they were, no one would get laid.
The right people will be your memory bank. The right people will bring out the best in you.
Some people are the wrong people. Do not confuse them with the rare people who are inherently evil or bad. These people are just not for you.
There are the friends you meet for the occasional happy hour, and there are friends with whom you have longstanding Taco Tuesdays. Taco Tuesday means a bottle of wine for each person and peeling back the business-casual mask of the weekday while relaying mortifying tales of performed adulthood to one another. You hit reply all. You cried at your desk. You said “I love you” when you were unprepared or drunk or sober. Any day can be Taco Tuesday. These are the people who fill in your blanks. These are the right people.
We are social but we are not social media. We are social but we cannot survive on content alone. Sometimes being passive consumers of content works against us. If you don’t do it today you’ll put if off and then it will be awkward when you decide you really, really want to email this person. So do it today. Or don’t do it. Or maybe do it tomorrow, but if you don’t do it today you definitely won’t do it tomorrow. Again, make a list. Wash your face.
There is no IRL. This is everything.
Drew Zandonella-Stannard has been writing about the Internet on the Internet since 2002. She lives in Seattle and thinks you're swell.
Photo via Flickr
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for some reason, when I read this, I heard the movie trailer announcer's voice in my head, along with dramatic music: "In a world where, etc etc".
this is not to say that I didn't love the shit out of this and now have something in my eye. bravo.
@heyits Ewan McGregor is narrating it in my head.
@redonion Regina Spektor's "Ghost of Corporate Future"
Wear sunscreen.
@Adam Frucci@facebook EXACTLY what I was thinking.
@Alli525 ME TOOOOO
We are not so mysterious. If you want to get to know someone infinitely better, meet their parents for five minutes. We are attracted to people who were loved in the ways we were loved as children. We are attracted to people who are lacking in ways we understand.
oof. I'm only catching onto this at 33, but I've always been a late bloomer, so…
ALSO, while I don't have Taco Tuesday, I do have a Taco Night group and yes it is exactly as described. Yay, we really are all connected or something! I'm normal!
@sox that was my favorite part. I'm just cutting onions.
@insouciantlover there's something in both of my eyes.
@insouciantlover making a lasagna…for one.
this is lovely. thank you.
Did anyone else have that feeling, the first 100 times they went to the grocery store after finishing college, that it was all just make-believe? Here I am, buying imaginary spinach, and paying for it with my imaginary debit card, and putting it in my imaginary…Oh, crap. This is real.
I don't know yet, but I have a hunch having kids probably feels the same way.
@Ophelia I feel very…smug maybe? "Haha all these adults in the grocery store think I'm for real, an actual person, just buying groceries like them…I have them snowed!" Like my being really immature is a secret identity.
@Ophelia YES!
@Ophelia it does.
@itsasatchel Totally. Now that the grocery store part has passed, I feel this way in a) home furnishing stores and b) any store more high-end than Ann Taylor Loft.
@iceberg I was afraid of that.
@Ophelia @itsasatchel Yes and Yes. I totally felt like I was tricking everyone. Weekly grocery shopping is just starting to feel like a normal chore and I've been out of college for mumble mumble years.
@Ophelia YES. I always thought Kevin McAllister was so grown up to go shopping on his own, and here I am now…. 20 years later.
@Ophelia A thousand times yes.
@andreadisaster@twitter Also, sometimes I buy things like Reese's peanut butter puffs cereal solely because my mother would NEVER have let those into her shopping cart. And then I eat the whole box in 2 days, and can't tell if I feel like a grownup or a three-year-old.
@Ophelia For me, it's not grocery shopping. It's every time I move, when I get in bed that first night in the new place, I think, "This is real now. This is my life now."
@Ophelia I STILL feel like that any time I pay a bill or do something remotely adult. Boy, am I a good actress!
Last night I had dinner with a friend and we talked about how we no longer think living in a neighborhood full of unbathed students is fun. It made me feel kind of old. Then I went to bed at 10pm.
@Ophelia @itsasatchel Yes! Still feeling this way at 30. I just bought new luggage "like a grown-up!" except it had giant hot pink and white polka dots, because I'm not that good at faking it yet.
@Ophelia I'm still in college but I'm working full-time for the summer. Every time I go to the grocery store after work I just have this overwhelming feeling of "IS THIS ADULTHOOD?!"
@Ophelia Wait, so, American colleges just give you all the food you need? I've lived in a rented house and done my grocery shopping/paid my bills since I was 19. Thats not to say I feel like an adult though.
@rayray I've paid my own bills since I was 19 too! I am starting to feel like you are me, but in another dimension. And probably a lot prettier.
@QuiteAimable Ha! Yay I've always wondered what alternative unverse me would be like! I'm sure I'm not prettier. I'm not *actually* Belle you know.
@rayray Hah, no, although they do have dining halls and such. That said, even when I lived off-campus, we spent a lot of time living off delivery pizza, macaroni and cheese and coffee, and not so much time actually grocery shopping (b/c it was a trek to the store, and they put those magnetic brakes on the shopping carts to keep us from stealing them out of the lot). So, basically, we'd do like 1-2 big grocery shoppings per semester, mainly either when someone got hold of a car, or when someone's parents came to visit (with a car).
i am yet to depart into the Real World from the cozy womb of my parents' house, but that is exactly what i imagine i will feel like while grocery shopping.
also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA8XiC3m7vw
@Ophelia – "I don't know yet, but I have a hunch having kids probably feels the same way."
yes, it does. although my daughters, who are so beautiful, sweet and funny that it kills me, are 8 and 10, i still feel like someone is going to come up and tap me on teh shoulder and tell me that it's obvious i have no idea what i doing parent-wise and request that turn in my parent license.
@Ophelia It was having kids that eventually cured me of the surreal feeling, because I had to know at the very least that I was doing things on their behalf deliberately and consciously. (Still messed up a lot, though.)
@Ophelia I still have that feeling sometimes. Especially when I do laundry. And I'm 30.
@Xanthophyllippa omg yes. Bill paying. Every time I pay all my bills (on time) I feel this little sense of pride. like "look! I did it!"
Yes.
This is beautiful. My "Taco Tuesday" friends are on the other side of the world, but they're so amazing they are still acting as my memory bank.
I had Taco Thursdays next to my fifth floor un-air-conditioned walk-up in the Village. This piece made me all gushy.
@Mads My taco tuesday friends are several hours away in a different city. Being 25 without them close by is hard, but it would be a zillion times more difficult if i didn't have them at all.
Related: how do you find taco tuesday friends in new cities, when there are no off campus parties and all night paper writing sessions and shared dorm bathrooms to bond over?
@waitykaitie hairpin meetups obvi!
@waitykaitie You organize a Hairpin meet-up.
I'm not being facetious either. I am now friends with Hairpin lurker that I met at the Austin Pinup. We just saw a live version of Footloose this past Friday, and I bet someday we will have Taco Tuesdays
).
@becky@twitter: Please move to Austin immediately so that we can be Taco Tuesday friends.
@waitykaitie I need some Taco Tuesday friends, too. All of mine became bona-fide adults with husbands and babies.
@wee_ramekin i would have tacos ANYDAY with you, lady! everyone i meet says i would love austin. just started dating a dude who LOVES austin and his brother lives there too. give it time and a dash of commitment, and it could happen!
@Mads I love love loved this article, but I kind of realized that I didn't really have any Taco Tuesday friends. It's extra sad that I'm in college now, a place where you're supposed to make the close friends you'll be close to for the rest of your life, blah blah blah. I think I just need to try harder.
@wee_ramekin Ooh please say there will be another Austin meetup at some point! I was sadly out of town for the last one.
@bitzyboozer I would be incredibly down for this. I was thinking also…maybe we could rent a karaoke room at The Highball? What do you guys think?
@wee_ramekin Wow, the idea of doing karaoke in front of people I just met is kind of terrifying, AND YET…I have been wanting to try that at the Highball for awhile. Hmm…
@bitzyboozer I would so go to that! Hairpin + karaoke = Fuck yeah!
@posturegirl Don't feel bad if it feels like you're not making besties. For one, you might be, you just don't know it yet. Otherwise, you have the rest of your life to meet new people. College is so weird.
I graduated 2 years ago, feeling like (with the exception of my boyfriend) I hadn't made any real AMAZING FRIENDS. For most of college I was the afterthought on people's Taco Tuesdays. Now I live in a city where quite a few of those semi-friends from college live, too, and turns out they're awesome and we've gotten really close now that we're not in that crazy drunken social mix all the time. I'm still shocked to notice that I'm the first or second person on Taco Tuesday emails rather than tacked on at the end. (Secrets they don't tell you: Being out of college is often better than being in college.)
@becky@twitter But, you can't attend Hairpin meetups if you live in Australia! :sadface:
@posturegirl @underthesea "(Secrets they don't tell you: Being out of college is often better than being in college.)"
THIS and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. College is the new high school. If you come out of it with mature, long-lasting adult relationships you'll cherish forever it'll have been by accident, not by design.
All I can say is GIVE YOUR SEEMINGLY LAME COWORKERS A CHANCE. Sometimes they turn out to be funny and sad and wise and better/more discreet drinkers than you'd imagined.
@sevanetta you can plan an australian one! do it! i bet there are a few aussies on the board.
@becky@twitter I knowww, I knoww. OK Other Australian hairpinners… where are you? (there is probably one in Melbourne, two in Sydney, one in Brisbane and I'm er in a town of 40,000 people in northern NSW. So I'm gonna hafta travel no matter whut.)
@sevanetta I'm in Sydney…and would def show up.
@sevanetta I live in the hunter. But I don't know if I'm a true hairpinner – I only drink alcohol, like, once a month, if that.
@sevanetta I'm in Canberra!… except for how I'm not, as I'm living in the US this year. But, you know, one more to pseudo-add to the count.
@sevanetta I'm in Melbourne, but could possibly get up to Sydney on a weekend..
@KatieWK: Agreed! I do not speak to any of my college classmates. My old coworkers from the job I had during college, however, are a different story. Even though we've all moved on from that job, we still hang out regularly and over the years, we've gotten each other through a lot. So, yes, give your coworkers a chance!
@Mads, Latoya, darthsparkle and fleurdelis! I'm in Lismore NSW. And I'm in Canberra next week. So … er… still an online thing for now? At least we know each other now
Oh and fleurdelis, I think it's the spirit of the thing. I was never a big drinker and I drink even less now (due to a few fun things like sulphite allergies and having to drive myself everywhere). But get me to a hotel on New Year's and I'll have like a whole THREE DRINKS IN A ROW!
@wee_ramekin I would do it! (Highball, that is)
@wee_ramekin I met you at the last hairpin meet up and I would looooove to met up again. Lets do it, seriously. Let's do a once a month
@underthesea, KatieWK Thank you!! You guys made me feel better times a million.
@sevanetta Sydney here!
@Mads Oh dear. Are you one of my facebook friends? Is the world really that small? Do you go for the Newcastle Knights?
@sevanetta Haha, it's my 21st in a couple of weeks and I intend to get my tipsy on. Sometimes I feel so abnormal for my age but in a good way.
@sevanetta i'm a perth hairpinner…
bet there's not too many of us around.
i really want some taco tuesday friends.
@sevanetta I'm in Brissie! would probably travel for a 'pin up, though
@all Austin 'Pinners
Okay. Let's do this shit again, y'all!! E-mail me at austinpinup at gee mail punto com and we'll figure out a time. I think Hairpinners + Austin + Highball karaoke + copious amounts of alcohol CAN ONLY EQUAL complete and total amaze-balls (amaze-oves [ovaries]?).
@bitzyboozer Girrrrl, do not be afraid. Pin-Ups are amazing. There's gonna be so much alcohol, it'll take the 'bitsy' out of your name, replace it with 'lotsa', and make you realize that singing "Faithfully" to a crowd of drunken 'Pinners is not only The Best Time You…, but also What We Have Going For Us. This is going to be the awesomest.
@wee_ramekin Austin here!
@posturegirl Oh goodness, I made virtually no friends in college with whom I stayed really, really close. I didn't even become best friends with my now best friend until after we both graduated. I awkwardly am extremely close to my high school girlfriends, however. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants style.
@sevanetta I'm in Melbourne! While I'm mostly a lurker here, I think it would be divine to have a 'PinUp here!
@sevanetta where in Australia do you live? I'm in Sydney – want to do an unofficial one there?
I created an account solely to comment on this.
What a charmingly raw piece. Still getting the hang of this whole "grown up" thing.
@BenIsAGirl This is basically the advice that I could have used, oh, about 5 or 6 years ago.
@BenIsAGirl So am I, and I'm 37!
Do you realiiiiize / we're floating in spaaaaace
I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AFTER 26.
@mysterygirl We can't tell you until you get there. Sorry.
@Ophelia : Heehee- don't tell, but I'm actually a staggering 32. I just expected the end of the 20s to be called out for having some kind of significance, like 25/26 was, and my expectations were dashed! Much like my expectations for my 20s were, so… meta!
@mysterygirl You keep failing, at first. Then you slowly, inconsistently start doing things right. Then you hit 30 and find yourself not crying into a case of beer on the couch but looking forward to it and celebrating with this amazing group of friends that you've somehow cobbled together and managed not to drive away.
Your early 30s are amazing. All those failures in your twenties, turns out, were learning experiences, Although you kinda had to be beat about the head with most of them before they actually sunk in, they did finally sink in. So you find yourself with real world skills and a sense of self and things are fun and you have enough money to do them and you are confident (most of the time). It's pretty rad, really.
Your friends have babies and that's a little weird.
@mysterygirl I read that as "my expectations for my 20s were so metal."
@misskaz Sometimes in your early 30s when those things sink in, you attend grad school. It's nice because you have a better sense of things, but you're completely broke and about to start over again.
@vanillawaif : I so, so wish that were true.
@tiny dancer Oh god yes. Sometimes you're 33 and making less than half the money you made at 26, and while you're grateful to have a stipend in your PhD program and grateful that you know more about life experience than the 25-year-olds around you and grateful to have traded in a dissatisfying career for a liberated mind, you also are terrified at the academic job market prospects and really miss those nonplussed shopping trips after Saturday drunk brunches.
@dietrich Yes, grad school continues to feel like some drawn-out perma-adolescence, in some ways, while also feeling like the absolute core of adulthood. By which I think I mean: you make little money, but you still have to pay the electric bill AND the gas bill.
And AAAAHHH the academic job market! I was hoping that we wouldn't speak of it anymore. Maybe if we only refer to it as "that-which-must-not-be-named" it will spontaneously improve?
@Quinciferous Yeah, and it's great when you realize that you're in your 30s and should probably start dressing like an adult, especially at conferences and on-the-horizon job talks and all, but then you find out that adult clothes are somehow less affordable now than back when you didn't need them…
I think that, yes, that's how that works; just keep saying, "this year sure was bad, but things are totally going to turn around next year when I go on the market! That's what my committee told me! It must be true!"
@dietrich @Quinciferous @tiny dancer
Other early 30s grad students! I'm so relieved to see you all.
I still have at least four more years until I have to brave the market, which makes me feel both better and worse. Better because maybe things will have improved by then (not likely) and worse because then I'll be 36.
@Cavendish It's a relief for me, too. I'm sure things will have gotten better by then…? Probably? If not, we can all get together and start whacking the oldies who refuse to retire and give up their sweet, sweet 2-2s, numbing committee work, and particle board office furniture.
@mysterygirl I was hoping for the same thing…
@dietrich @Cavendish
I keep telling myself this, too.
Except this week I had a meeting with my advisor the day the debt-ceiling shit-sicle/deal went through. She straight up was like, "The academic market is contracting, because 10% unemployment means no one can waste money going to 4-year colleges, or, really, any college, and basically you are screwed. But hey, write an awesome dissertation anyways, because HEY PERSONAL BEST?"
I am supposed to go on the job market next year (!!!) and I have only two pairs of trousers. Support group?
@Quinciferous @Cavendish Um, in all seriousness, YES. Let's call it the "perhaps I should buy a blazer/is finishing or not finishing this dissertation worse/is my advisor telling me this is good just so I'll leave the office without crying/do I really, REALLY need to purchase a suit?/do I really, REALLY need to go through this q+a after I deliver this paper/I only have two pairs of trousers/somehow I still manage to find a way to afford $30 bottles of bourbon" group.
Yes. All of this, yes. And just as you're starting to think you're all adult and you've figured it out, you get the flu and realize that you still have to be a grown up with a 102* fever.
@Wondajules Ugh. That was me on Tuesday. It sucked. And unlike when you're a kid and one of your parents stayed home with you, your husband can't call into the office because his wife has a fever.
getting a divorce immediately makes you feel like a grownup
@claire so does having a kid at 20!
@heyits Yes. Having a kid at 20 means you forego most of the baby deer stuff and move straight to the full-on adulthood. (But it also means you get to party with your teenaged kids while most of your late-30s friends are swamped with diapers.)
@Xora yes! you also get to give parenting advice to your friends who are 15 years your senior and pregnant with their first child.
really, the baby deer stuff still happens. you just get to be a baby deer with your own baby deer, and somehow you manage, mostly inelegantly, to figure out that 20s stuff (which still happens) and that parenting stuff and that life stuff. and you make a lot of mistakes. sometimes you wonder who is taking care of who. sometimes you sob into your teddy bear after your son is in bed because you don't know how to be a grownup, my god, it's so hard, why does no one tell you how HARD it is?!
but eventually, you find your way. and you're stronger for all the mistakes and tears cried and endless bottles of wine consumed.
@claire My divorce made me feel 10 years younger. In a good way.
There are a few things people forgot to tell you, like that not everyone floats in a responsibility-free cocoon until age 25.
Right? And while we're on the subject, I happen to wholly enjoy taking my clothes off.
Someone should do this for your 40s
@carpetblogger Yes, please. Reading this made me feel poignant. And OLD.
The right people will be your memory bank. The right people will bring out the best in you.
Some people are the wrong people. Do not confuse them with the rare people who are inherently evil or bad. These people are just not for you.
The moment you realize this – I mean, really get it, in your bones – everything changes for you, in the best possible way.
Sigh. I want the wrong person to be the right person. And he's still young too! So maybe I can just sculpt him into the right person over the course of a few weeks/months/years.
Double sigh. I know I can't and that's why I broke up with him. But I still want him to be the right person.
Man I totally disagree that my twenties are going slowly. THEY ARE NOT.
I am 25 though and I can totally feel that "looking around and deciding who you want to take with you" thing though.
Amazing. This needs to be standard issue upon graduation from college.
Thanks, ladies. You all are invited to Taco Tuesday.
I'm 27, live with my mom…but pay rent to help out. Does this mean I'm not really an adult? Ugh, still got bills and shit.
@TooCool4School Eh, sometimes life just happens. You're still an adult.
@TooCool4School I know 20-year-olds who live on their own and have office jobs but, they're an emotional wreck. I also know 29-year-olds who are out of work and borrowing from parents to get by but they don't let that affect their self-esteem. Just keep you're head up.
This sounds like a thought catalog article. But better.
@kaaaaaaatie-did Right?
I turned 25 this year and this rings true to me in so many ways. Especially the part about "the wrong people." I learned the hard way this year how true that is.
Yeah, no, sorry. I don't relate to any of this at all. The best advice I ever got about Entering Adulthood is from my mother: your life is now going to work, going home and going to sleep. Deal with it.
@katherine Yeahhhh…. me either. I prefer your mom's version.
@katherine That is super bleak, and my most hated part of adults giving advice to younger people – "Growing up is when your soul is slowly drained from you and everything is lifeless and joyless forever! Welcome to monotony. Have fun! There are no other options!" False.
@katherine That sounds like a shitty existence.
@insouciantlover It's true for lots of people, though. Not everyone lives the equivalent of a Thought Catalog post. Examples:
- Lots of people don't enter their adult years at age 20. They've basically had to be adults all their lives. These people, who are in fact the majority of people, don't have time to ponder their baby deer legs; they have to commute to work and commute home.
- Lots of people don't have Taco Tuesdays. Maybe they've fallen in with the wrong people well into their 20s, or not fallen in with people at all, or are the people that you don't want to fall in with. Lots of people have to face this adulthood shit mostly by themselves.
- Lots of people don't really feel like pseudo-philosophizing, because they've got life to live.
@katherine exactly. #firstworldproblems
@katherine That ain't living.
@katherine no one is saying one should deny the reality of a 9-5 existence. But you can not tell someone to map their course in life with this outlook. You are helping them to set themselves up for dissatisfaction. Truth is your wildest dreams may not come true, but it's the journey that will leave a smile on your face in your dying moments.
yes yes yes yes yes
I can't bear any more somethings in my eyes this week, truly. But thank you anyway, on the eve of some serious baby deer leg practice.
I literally walked into my own kitchen the other night to get a bowl of ice cream and immediately had the feeling that I was in someone else's house, like I was staying over a friend's house from high school or something. It was weird. I didn't like it. I might have to hang up a blacklight poster just to feel better about myself.
Who the fuck waits till 25-26 to move out of their parents house and live life proactively?? This article is well-written and I feel like it would be poignant if I could relate to it, but I weep for the people it describes.
@palliata People who can't find jobs thanks to the shitty job market, or people who can only find part-time/contract/temporary work that isn't enough to pay rent? That's one of the parts of this article I don't have a problem with, actually.
@palliata I think it means by now you have ALREADY as in in the last 5-8 years moved out, and also your parents house is no longer the fuck-up safehouse it used to be.
@palliata That was the part I had a hard time relating to at first. After I graduated from college a semester early (because I was dumb, and thought I was ready to go forth into the "real" world), I slept on the floor of my friend's dorm room while I searched for a place to live rather than move home, not because home was terrible – it was wonderful – but I was going to "be an adult" (also related to the graduating early plan) and going home seemed like a step backward. A few years later, after being on my own and then traveling internationally, I got a job in my hometown and moved home again. I still moved out as quickly as I could. But now, at 31, sometimes I think it would be wonderful to chuck it all and move home and take the time to figure out a lot of the things I tried to fast-forward through at 21.
I'm 21, just graduated, no job, back with the parents. My sister is 30, with a job, house, husband, two children and a third on the way. ARGH!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
@sophduck Just remember, when we 30-year-olds graduated, there were these crazy things out there called "jobs." Roll with it for a little while; it's a tough time to have to start out.
@sophduck Could be worse. You could be 30 and she could be 21. I feel this way about my younger brother. 2 years younger and he has a mortgage and a wife and a job for life. How??? How??? He's not even that nice!
@sevanetta Yeah, that's me and my brother. Except my brother is really nice so I can't hate him for it.
I think I'm going to print this out (printing? what's that?) and keep it somewhere I'll see it regularly. Sometimes I feel like I'll never grow up, and then I realize that wait, this IS grown up, the secretly being myself inside but miming adulthood when someone is looking. It's nice to remember that most people don't have it any more resolutely figured out than I do.
Love the solidarity in these comments. Thanks so much for writing.
This person sounds like Sugar from The Rumpus.
@agba I enjoy reading Sugar, but I cringe every time she says something cheesy followed by "sweetpea". It just seems simpering and infantile.
@marigny I guess it is my semi-Southern upbringing but I find that very reassuring. I myself tend to call my friends "doll."
@agba I'm from the south as well. New Orleans. I dunno, something about it just rubs me funny.
@agba I agree, this reminds me of Sugar.
Does this mean I should have chosen relationship over career?
@heb http://thehairpin.com/2011/07/eternal-happiness-and-the-medium-chill
Yes.
@pkle THANK YOU for resharing this! Somehow I missed this article the first time around. Just what I needed to read today.
<3
Love this so much. I'm printing it too.
I did it wrong.
@Brunhilde Me too. Now, I'm starting over… sigh.
About to turn 28, divorced, own my house, broke(ish), grown up job… and still feel like an imposter. Like everybody can see through me…. does that ever stop? Also, I'm scared that I will be in this weird limbo forever.. childless, stupidly loving my cat more than I should… ? TELL ME IT GET'S BETTER (that sounded pretty desperate, I know. But still.. better, right?!?!)
@Kitty someone really needs to create an 'it gets better' series of videos for single people in their late 20s. from what i hear, your 20s are horrible, but soon we will be thirty, flirty and thriving.
and, as it is my go-to advice for everything but sobriety and boredom: there is always al green, leg tensing, and gin. if one of those three items can't solve your problem, then i am not the oracle you seek.
@Kitty I think most people spend much of their lives being good at a few things, and being/feeling semi-competent at almost everything else, but faking it. No one can tell when you're faking it.
This is sort of unrelated and probably superficial, but many of the tricks I've learned from Jane Marie make me feel a lot better about this very thing. Like I have on my adult woman war paint now, and no one can tell I still eat cereal for dinner four nights a week and sometimes forget to pay my cell phone bill on time.
also–you can never love your pets too much.
@Kitty It gets so very much better. Because you get so very much better.
@Kitty IT GETS BETTER. <3
@Kitty There is no such thing as loving your cat more than you should. I just said goodbye to my cat who was my constant companion through my twenties, and of all the things I regret loving him too much is absolutely not one of them.
@insouciantlover This.
@Kitty Just had to write it out as well as giving it a thumbs up: YES. 'It gets better' videos definitely needed!!!
@sevanetta I meant @ Becky!!!
@sevanetta totally. edith? nicole? can we start this campaign on the hairpin?
@insouciantlover this article did not make me cry. this comment did.
now i have to go give my cat a million snuggles wahhhh
@Kitty Whenever I feel this way I remember this Dar Williams lyric:
And I wake up and I ask myself what state I'm in
And I say well I'm lucky, cause I am like East Berlin
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they'd know that I was scared
They'd would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me
http://www.totallyfuzzy.net/ourtube/dar-williams/what-do-you-hear-in-these-sounds-video_95cc3215d.html
Hope this isn't too off-topic; anyway, it's on-topic as far as this piece relates to my experience. When I was turning 35, my parents had retired to North Carolina – bought some land, were building their new house (from my Dad's plans!), etc. The kinds of things that are still pretty remote to me now, and inconceivable back then. When my Mom called to wish me happy birthday, I got the usual "I can't believe you're 35!", etc. ('cause you never stop being your parents' baby in their eyes, so get over it already, it's cute). I told her I couldn't believe it either; that I couldn't really think of myself as a grownup adult even at that ripe old age. She said "Neither do we! We're making this up as we go along and hoping for the best. You never really stop feeling that way, you know!" Best birthday present I ever got.
People further up are saying they did it wrong. Me, too. Screwed up my twenties so badly I thought I would never be able to recover. But I'm making up for it now. I'm 36, and my life rocks. I'm having the most fun I've ever had EVER.
@kayjay (It also really, REALLY helps if you tell yourself that you're constantly on vacation, which is occasionally interrupted by work/grown-up responsibilities. Say it outloud and tell people. It will change your perspective about everything.)
Here is the thing about being in your twenties, with a dead-end job, no nice things, a roommate you tolerate, no furry animals to cuddle up with, and a string of men you are trying not to sleep with (cf. many hilarious Hairpin articles on that one): you are free! Try moving to another country just because you can. I did it (kind of a couple of times), have never regretted it, and am a little wistful about it now that I have a husband, a cat, and a nice mod chair.
Also, depending on the country, you don't need a lot of money to do this.
@miss buenos aires This is exactly what I needed to hear today. Actually, to hear in life. I want to be a gyspy.
@miss buenos aires you. get out of my head! you're scaring me!
@nomorecheese @fareby_galore Where are you thinking of moving? Do it quick, before our economy and thus the dollar both completely collapse!
Try to find a country whose economy and thus currency have already just collapsed. Maybe Iceland?
What if "doing it wrong" means being a real live adult at 24 years old and saving for retirement and celebrating your 5-year (dating) anniversary and changing your lightbulbs when they go out? There are certain things about my life I don't want to change (e.g. my boyfriend), but it seems like all my cool friends are the ones who are still figuring things out and the ones who are like me are totally squaresville. Which means I'm totally squaresville. But at least I have a Roth IRA, I guess?
@cuminafterall: We need you to be the designated driver at Taco Tuesdays.
In exchange, we will get you through the midwife crisis you will have in about ten years or so.
@cuminafterall Don't despair, there are people out there who are cool and still have it figured out! I think being an uncertain 20something is overglamorized, in a way. I have friends who are busy being cool stereotypical hipsters and dating guys who are all wrong for them and having crazy adventure and all. I wouldn't say I have it all figured out, but I have a job I like and a boyfriend I'm planning to settle down with (and I know those things can change at any time), and while I occasionally have a "why I am not running around Europe and making out with random guys?" freakout, the fact is I like stability. But it helps that most of my friends are living with significant others and changing their lightbulbs and paying their bills… which doesn't mean we don't still get drunk on wine at picnics and make stupid decisions and take crazy trips and figure out how to be adults.
@cuminafterall Plus, I think one of the hallmarks of your 20s is being convinced you're doing it wrong, no matter how you're doing it.
@cuminafterall Oh hai, life twin. (That's kind of eerie. Aside from sharing the age/chronology you listed, I was just freaking out about the fact that I ignore all my retirement planning mail because seriously wtf, I'm 24!)
My tactic has been to embrace the squaresville. Host all your transient friends on your couch and take pride in being the only one who can make it through 24 months in the same apartment, WITH a decent futon to boot! Also, don't get married! Or do, and just accept being treated like a cancer patient for the length of the engagement/first six months of marriage. (They get over it.)
@underthesea I love you so much for this comment. I have so many "why aren't I running around Europe and making out with random guys???" moments, so many. And then I cry because clearly I am dull and uninteresting and no wonder I don't have Taco Tuesday friends, who wants to hang around a boring homebody who doesn't have crazy adventures.
Then I get over it and am soooo glad I don't have to deal with all the bullshit that comes along with that glamorous transience.
@KatieWK I don't think there's such a thing as a "decent futon." total oxymoron.
@cuminafterall hello, life triplets! or quadruplets, whatever. anyway, i'm in the same boat–i'm 23, got a great careery job a month after graduating, happily living with my boyfriend of 5.5 years, generally stable and happy. i have those "Y ARENT I IN BARCELONA RITE NOW MAKING OUT WITH MULLETED SPANIARDS" moments, but i just love so much of my life that it's not worth the tradeoff. i just remind myself of how lonely i got after being abroad for 3 months, and it's not like i can't travel anyway (and will probably be able to afford it sooner than my transient buds). and a lot of them express their jealousy and loneliness to me..i think the grass is always greener.
@cuminafterall "it's not like i can't travel anyway." Exactly! I cried to my boyfriend about a month ago that I feel like my life is too stable and there will never be any surprises and everything is so dull, forever, at which point he pointed out that we are not exactly buying houses in the suburbs and settling down. Life will always be crazy and unexpected, and everybody goes through growing pains in different ways. Yay, life quadruplets!
What about being someplace between the naive liberal-arts kid who says they don't *need* anything to be happy, and the mid-30s homeowning married women who seem so secure? And not wanting to be either of them?
@S. Elizabeth Ugh. Yes. I don't want a stroller and I don't want lame bodysuits at 3 AM on a tuesday while 'finding myself'. Just want a studio, work that doesn't make me want to die, some Qream and a cat.
@han — thank you!
Studio: check.
Law school: check.
Red wine: check.
Cat: check.
Bodysuit, stroller, PBR, fold-out futon, hookups whose names I don't know: negative.
Dear Hairpin,
You guys are all doing an amazing job and this post is killing it.
Keep it up! Thank you!!
I'm turning twenty in a month and this made me sad, like even though I have this advice ahead of time I'm still going to mess it up.
@Casanova Frankenstein You will most certainly mess it up. If my twenties taught me anything it's that no amount of planning and thinking you have it all figured out will stop you from messing it up. We all mess it up. And that's okay! Messing it up is how we figure out what not messing it up looks like.
@Casanova Frankenstein Yeah, I'm 20 and after reading this I thought "oh god, I think I'm doing it wrong"
@bitzyboozer Well, after reading this I had a mini-emotional break-down, drank a lot of gin, and hooked up with a guy I definitely do not like in real life, so looks like I've already gotten started!
Since today is my 28th birthday, this was kinda perfect. Thank you.
@TheFang Happy birthday!
)
As a 24 year old who just got dumped by my first real boyfriend, I really needed to read this. Even if just for an excuse to sit here crying some more.
@Nicole @twitter <3 <3 <3
i really needed this encouragement after work today. thank you!
as a 22 year old who just possibly lost her best friend/guy i thought was "the one" who i've known forever and lovezoooomg due to ill-adviced drunken smooching after his ex cheated on him and i told him about …i really needed to read this too.
(totally oversharing for my first hairpin comment egads)
@pastina But everyone thinks you just look like a white blob standing in front of some grey, so oversharing is totally cool.
"We are attracted to people who were loved in the ways we were loved as children. We are attracted to people who are lacking in ways we understand."
I actually find myself attracted to people who were loved in ways I wasn't loved as a child, and who have the attributes that I don't. My home growing up was never a comforting or nurturing or even safe place for me, so maybe that has to do with why this article rubs me the wrong way. Like other commenters, I learned a lot of these lessons earlier out of necessity but also through deliberate effort. Mostly it wasn't from living life by reaction.
I understand that the piece is well-intentioned and I'm glad it's helping other people. It's thoughtful, but I feel like its wisdom is condescending—a reassurance for people whose problems are solely existential or related to having enough but wanting nicer things. Which is fine, people without awful problems still benefit from guidance, but at the same time the article is written as if everyone in this age range were having a common experience, and it romanticizes that idea.
It's painting this generation as fumbling wide-eyed through life, superficially self-aware yet mostly clueless, neurotic, immature and obsessed with social media. I think this piece has a lot of potential, but the realizations of adulthood it's talking about (Buying hand soap? Washing your face? Waking up before brunch? Not being friends with people who aren't meaningful to you?) are too immature.
@safeword well, you can't please everyone. I think it's safe to say that many of the diverse population of Hairpin readers found this article to ring true for them, so I don't think they missed the mark. I can't begin to judge what you might really be like, but it seems to me like you are no longer at a stage in life where you are straddling childhood and adulthood, clumsily. Everyone has a different experience. Maybe you didn't, or couldn't fumble, and that made you into a woman self-assured in her adultness. If that's the case, then I do admire that. But I will also say that being completely responsible for myself since 18 or so, for several years I felt as though I had grown into adulthood. Very successful, type A kind of girl. Then, it all sort of broke down. I have to grow up for real this time, now that I'm away from my destructive family and not steeled blindly toward achieving goals like I used to be. Now I'm fumbling my way toward a new existence, the way I should have been able to through my late teens and early 20's. But, I have to accept it. And it's going to be okay.
@safeword
I spent forever trying to carefully craft a response to this but in the end I still think you did a better job. "a reassurance for people whose problems are solely existential or related to having enough but wanting nicer things" It's not that I don't go through these same problems, and it's not like I have everything figured out, but adulthood is not about buying dish soap, it's about knowing that nobody gives a shit about you buying dish soap. These are the things you worry about after a lifetime of loving, involved family members watching your every step to make sure your happiness is undisturbed. The rest of the world just doesn't care. It doesn't have to. If you succeed or fail, whatever, as long as your doing so doesn't inconvenience others. Whether or not you adequately perform the rituals of perceived adulthood, *nobody is watching.* What they're watching is how you treat others, whether you fulfill your obligations, whether you can be trusted, whether you can do the right thing. And maybe that's why this feels so weird to me – if you don't know how to keep a secret or be kind to a friend or make an ethical decision by the time you're 26 years old, all the dish soap in the world won't make me think better of you.
This sounds silly perhaps to those who haven't seen it or who didn't like the movie, but "Lars and the Real Girl" has a key scene which always rang true to me and which I think ought to be mentioned SOMEWHERE in the comments:
Lars Lindstrom: How'd you know?
Gus: How'd I know what?
Lars Lindstrom: That you were a man.
Gus: Ahhh. I couldn't tell ya.
Lars Lindstrom: Was it… okay, was it sex?
Gus: Um. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's uh, yeah, yeah it's kind of – it's uh – no. Well, it's kind of sex but it's not uh, you know? I don't know. I don't know. It's – uh – good question, good question.
Lars Lindstrom: Yeah, but I have to know
Gus: Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts.
Lars Lindstrom: Okay, like what?
Gus: Like, you know, like, you don't jerk people around, you know, and you don't cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you're wrong, or you try to, anyways. That's all I can think of, you know – it sound like it's easy and for some reason it's not.
@Diana I think you said it very well. It's been a really long time since I've had a moment of "Oh wow! Look at me, doing grown up stuff! Is it real? Is it a dream?" while buying dish soap. In fact, I'm not sure I've EVER done that.
The only real indication of burgeoning adulthood for me was that I stopped looking for the easy way out, and I stopped patting myself on the back for doing the bare minimum. I gave up saying things like, "Hey, I showed up for work today. That's 90% of the battle." No, showing up to work and ready to go above and beyond everyone's expectations of you every single day is 90% of the battle. Showing up at all is about 10% of that battle.
Or something. I don't know anything ever about anything. Now get off my lawn.
Always carry a towel.
Yes to all of this.
Also important and a lesson I am trying to learn currently, as a twenty-something with SURPRISE! responsibilities: pick what you want to waste your energy on. If you had to grow up a little faster than some of your peers, well that's shit, but lots of things in life are shit. Pick what you want to carry with you and try not to begrudge others their lot in life because it ain't worth it.
@safeword Could not agree more. The tone IS condescending, especially coming from a 26 year-old. I would accept this from a hungover grandmother, maybe.
We are not all sloppy twenty-somethings who can't pull themselves out of bed before noon(!), and some of us can't wait to take our clothes off, and who cries at their desk?
HEY LADIES, YOU'RE MAKING US LOOK BAD.
I'm 35 and just here for the tacos, really. Love you, Hairpin!
Bookmarked this- i love it!! It pairs well with this link, also bookmarked for "those days"- http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2011/01/7-reasons-to-feel-cool-about-s.html
Reading this, and then the comments afterward, hit so close to home it felt surreal. I'm comforted, and yet almost uncomfortable thinking about how many women here expressed such deep thoughts and feelings that I have every day.
Thank you for the lovely article.
This was so gentle it was like being smothered to death by a thousand tiny fairies gingerly pressing a thousand tiny freshly laundered down pillows against my face.
Inside of a womb made of baby birds.
I don't know, I should be the target audience for this piece – 22, living in my first big city with my first real job with my first real boyfriend, but I don't really relate to this. This over-ponderous "We" that is sooooo intimidated by the idea of an adulthood which is so non-threatening it is best represented by the idea of buying goddamn handsoap. What kind of weak-kneed generation is cowed by the thought of buying household goods? If I lived a century ago I would be bearing my second or third kid and running a household at this age. Hell, if I lived in huge portions of the world right NOW I would be doing that. This idea of being able to stand up and say "Today is the day! Today I will decide to be a grownup!" at the age of 26?! is so bizarre and privileged and unfamiliar to most people in the history of the world living or dead. On the one hand, you can't help the circumstances you're raised in, but you can definitely make sure you have pulled your head out of your own butt in a timely manner. You hit "reply all" on an email and you have to remind yourself that "things can't always be this grim"? No kidding, girl. I don't want to sound like a Smug Adult here, my life could fall apart easily tomorrow and I still don't understand how a Roth IRA works and I don't even have my driver's license yet. But man, having an existential crisis about this shit? I don't have time, y'all, I'm busy trying to figure out how a Roth IRA works. But I'm not going to bring that up at Taco Tuesday, that's drinking time and it is sacred. My friends don't care. I don't expect them to care.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't really care that everybody my age (including myself) has a learning curve. What I do care about is whether We are going to be so Self-Important about it.
@Diana If you lived a century ago you'd 'be bearing your second or third child and running a household' by now, yes, probably, but if you lived a century ago you'd also have a significantly shorter lifespan, significantly narrower expectations and options, and you'd likely live in a more confined community in which everyone took pretty much the same path at the same time and well, you would always have known what your life was going to be. Clearly, we are in a much more privileged position than women a century ago, and clearly people who are able to live with their parents until they're 25 without financial stresses are ridiculously lucky and yes, have delayed adulthood, but I don't think that really takes away from what the article is trying to say. Today, in the West, we have huge expectations for ourselves, we are exposed via tv and the internet to the realisation that there are MILLIONS of people out there living life totally differently, and maybe more successfully than we are, and when you're in your 20s and starting to make your own way that creates real pressure and confusion. It's pressure born out of privilege, yes, but it doesn't make it any less real. I'd also argue that our generation isn't (outwardly) neurotic, that articles like this resonate so much because they offer solace to a generation who is constantly trying to market itself as looking totally capable and put together and professional and cool. I don't think it's about self importance, it's just about people feeling relieved to know other people share their feelings.
@Diana Live a couple of years. I relate to this a lot more now that I'm looking back, than I would have at 22.
@sophduck When you say "we," do you mean middle-class (or upper-middle-class) people?
I think that's the only thing that bugs me about the piece, a little: The assumption that all the readers here are the same. That "we" all got to chill at school until our twenties, and our now being nudged to make our own way. Some of us in the West didn't get those options.
I don't begrudge middle-class/upper-middle-class people their upbringing, but it does annoy me when they speak in a collective on a site like this (as if there couldn't possibly be people unlike them in a place as awesome as the Hairpin), or otherwise treat themselves as the default state of being.
This was really lovely, to quote my Irish mother, my bladder is near my eye right now. It's lovely having this community of people all writing about our experiences and reassuring each other it's ok to feel freaked out by the world
@Diana everything's relative and although we undoubtedly forget how lucky we are sometimes, we all have a lot to deal with, a lot more low level stress and anxiety which it's ok to acknowledge, we can't all be She-ra!
I loved this article.
But I can understand why some people are taking issue with it.
I will attempt to muddle out an answer to that conflict.
No, not all of us have trouble pulling ourselves out of bed before noon. Not all of us are terrified at the prospect of buying handsoap. But in an adult world where every day is fraught with such disappointment, effort, challenge, and confusion, sometimes those little steps are what we need– I don't care if you're 26 or 86.
I consider myself to be an adult. I have a job, a 401k, I live in an apartment that I pay for without Daddy's help. I have a cat, which is basically the same as having a child, amirite? But still, for all of my "successes," I still feel the need to strive. To remember to use my reusable grocery bags and to keep my room clean and to be spectacular at work when so often I feel like the paper is up to my neck and I can't move. I feel like I need to whittle myself down to a pretty, pre-stress-eating size and eat organic vegetables and create a stunning light fixture to replace the boob light in my room and paint the wall in the bathroom and go back to hot yoga even though only a crazy person would do that for a second day in a row.
I feel like I need that amazing, sexy boyfriend who likes my mind and thinks I'm hotter than Venus. I feel like I need to have written my first book. I feel like I need to have my own apartment. I feel like I need to do and do and do and do.
And I need to be reminded that it's okay. That I'm 25. That I don't need to have it figured all the way out yet. That I have time. That questions and confusion and stress and frustration and tears and small slivers of giddy joy and getting drunk and having a messy room are all Okay.
That I, for all of my fumbling and flaws, am Okay. And I'll keep getting better.
@LaFabuliste THIS. I feel like I could have written this.
@LaFabuliste Yes, THIS. Exactly.
@LaFabuliste Absolutely! I constantly feel the need to do and do, and a lot of the time I don't. Yesterday I sat on the floor all day and did a jigsaw puzzle. It was fun but I regret not having made an effort to figure it all out. Why don't I know what I want to do with my life? Why am I stuck in a cubicle job I despise and why haven't I put that damn herb garden on my roof yet!? There is no boyfriend, and no book. And I'm only 22. You can tell yourself over and over that it's all okay and that there's time, and that you're still so young in your 20's. But I feel like I should still be doing the things I'm not. Live in a different country, road trip across the US, go to Asia. When am I going to do that? How do I get the money or the guts to quit my job? Feels like there's no time, even though there is.
But you're right, for now it's time for a glass of wine and my messy room. & it is.
I am 25 and looking around to see what I want to take with me as I move across the country in October. It is terrifying and when I move it will be the farthest I've ever been from my parents. Maybe this is adulthood? On a related note, any Los Angeles Hairpinners want to be my friend?
If this is what going to a Hairpin get-together is like, please please set one up in Minneapolis.
I just want to say that this is perfect. All of it. Thank you.
"Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."
I think that now that I am "adult" I realize more than ever that the people I thought were "adults" when I was younger were in pretty much the same boast I now find myself in:
That is pinching themselves and thinking "am a really fooling them?" The only difference between my twelve year old self and person I am now is that I am now aware of how little I will ultimately know about everything, Whereas my twelve year old self (mistakenly ) anticipated the time when she would ultimately know it all.
woops"boat" of course…..
Just wanted to say I loved this.
Loved this. I emerged from grad school in my late twenties and now I'm trying to figure out how to be an "adult" when my husband I both work tons of hours. I want a clean house, homecooked meals, happy marriage, sex, my old atheltic body and hobbies, and the ability to enjoy weekends. I'm struggling on all accouts. Giving me enormous responsibility at my job makes it more confusing ("wha? You think i can do this?"). I feel stupid, both for not figuring it out, and worrying about it at all. Good to hear I'm not alone.
Sugar?
This is so pretentious.
I'm 29. At the end of my third decade, I feel as if my body is made of scar tissue, bound in a tanned hide and powered by a nuclear reactor. I have made choices that I wasn't forced to make. I have accepted the fact that I will never be certain things. I have learned to make myself get off my ass and do what needs to be done. And I have learned to put down my head and plod through the infinite gauntlet, to show up every day, fix what's broken, clean what's dusty, keep treading water, make monthly payments, save on food, and pull myself up inch by inch, because I need to know that tomorrow, I'll be stronger than I am today.
Yawn.
Maybe I'm the only one but I do the opposite lol ..ahh working the nightlife smh
"There is no IRL. This is everything."
I believe there is an "IRL". Even the simple fact that you distinguish between friends you meet occasionally, and friends with whom you have longstanding Taco Tuesdays seems — to me — that there is an In Real Life. In Real Life, you'll have both kinds of friends. In Virtual Life (IVL), which I tentatively consider: Facebook, Twitter, IM-ing, any way in which we use technology to communicate with others (as opposed to face-t-face) — in Virtual Life, I don't think that we CAN have those longstanding Taco Tuesday friends.
I think friendships are built, and then progress and flourish IRL. We use social media and technology to communicate with longstanding friends, but how long can we go without seeing someone IRL before we feel like, well, we don't really know that person? You can't have Taco Tuesdays online!
It is a mistake to toss IRL and IVL together. As humans, we need them to be separate. We need to be reassured that it MATTERS to speak to people face-to-face, to see someone's eyes when we speak to him/her, to be able to hug or kiss or smile without typing up emoticons. That being said,
LOL This was an interesting read!