I'm a Terrible Adult



I've tried being an adult for a while, and I don't think it's right for me. Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm kidding (well, sort of).
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By legal standards, I have been classified as an "adult" for the last 383 days. As a kid growing up, I thought adulthood meant that you got to stay up as late as you want, make big decisions, and overall just run your life exactly as you want to. No people telling you no, no restrictions hanging over you, no worries about things.

I was wrong.

To be fair, 19 years old is barely what most people would consider a real adult. I know that I have a long way to go and a lot to learn before I can really say without hesitation that I know what I'm doing. But I hope I can get there soon.

Also, I personally have a really weird situation. Most people following their high school graduation go on to college or get a job or in some way or another start doing something with their lives. I, however, am stuck in limbo. Since I graduated five months ago, I have done little more than sit at home and wait around. Of course, there is a purpose to all this waiting as I will be leaving my home in less than a month to go to Mexico. But this past little while sure has felt... useless.

As a kid, uselessness is the exact opposite of what I felt adulthood was. Even if not every adult was curing cancer or building spaceships or changing the world, my young mind always thought being an adult meant having a purpose.

And maybe it's over-dramatic to say I don't have a purpose right now, but it sure doesn't feel like I do.

I don't know.

I guess what really brought this post on is simply my lack of social skills.

Maybe this is normal for someone brought up in my generation of digital, faceless interaction. But I never thought I would have as much trouble as I do trying to do simple things like scheduling my own doctor's and dentist's appointments. It's honestly a little ridiculous how much I dread making a simple, two-minute phone call simply because I don't know exactly what to say. I like when things are scripted for me, when the words aren't awkwardly summoned and stumbled through. I prefer it when I know what I'm supposed to do.

And I guess that's what I'm getting at. I would say that, typically, I'm pretty good at following directions. If someone explains how to do something to me, I can do it. But with things related to what most people consider "adulting", I'm a mess (mostly because I've just never been told what to do).

I wish that I had had the chance to take a class in high school to learn all the things I would need to know in order to not freak out when I start doing things for myself. But I didn't. Apparently the education system values repetitive, unnecessary classes about dead people over current skills that can be used in everyday life.

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say in this post. But it's frustrating to me that I've gone through thirteen years of formal, institutionalized education (and am planning on spending more years this way) and I still don't know how airports work or how to talk to professionals without sounding like a third grader or how to send a letter (side note: I legitimately spent over an hour the other day on the US Postal Service's website attempting to figure out how to send packages, what I can/can't send, and simply when I would need to use more than one stamp when sending a letter. Did you know you can send day-old chickens, ducks, turkeys, and other birds through the mail? I didn't!).

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that the knowledge in my head doesn't make me feel like much of an adult, because it seems like I know a bunch of useless facts but I can't figure out how to do certain everyday things that I feel like I should know.

Did this post turn into a rant that doesn't make sense? I guess so. I don't really think this post is going anywhere anymore so I suppose I will end. The last thing I'm going to say is this: maybe my urge to fulfill the expectations of others and learn to be an adult is stupid in itself. In the words of Himanshu Bisht:

"The most childish thing is to believe that you are an adult now..."

Maybe adulthood isn't as fun or as desirable as I thought it would be.

See you tomorrow.

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