My best friend recently turned 30 and even more recently bought a house. I’ve vicariously experienced this through text messages explaining that they argued so much about what colour to paint the living room that now everything is magnolia. (which solves the mystery of magnolia living rooms across the world.) She’s understandably a bit panicked about owning a full set of keys, some of which she can’t identify but presumes unlock some new level of adulthood.
So this one is for her.
Adulthood is a precarious notion.
At 18 you are definitely, like, yeah, a full blown adult.
By 22 you’re pretty sure that you’re not an adult but that someone’s going to email you the instructions any day now, and hey that’s cool, because you’ve just discovered Mojitos.
By 26 you realise that the instructions were a lie and Mojitos don’t dissipate overnight but linger patiently behind the eyeballs waiting for your alarm to go off. You glower at people suspisciously on the street wondering how the hell they got that adulthood thing down.
By 28 you’ve come to the conclusion that nobody has a bloody clue what they’re doing. Besides, adulthood sounds boring compared to this haphazard freefall, and hell yes let’s try the new cocktail bar, it’s open on a Tuesday right?
By 30 adulthood has snuck in the back door and is now sat in the corner making “ahem” noises when you press play on the 5th episode of Walking Dead in a row at 1am on a Thursday. You find yourself admonishing people who stayed up all night. You gently shake your head, they really should go to bed early, they need a full nights rest. (They don’t, they’re 22). You start thinking yoga might be a good idea and Mojitos a bad one.
Of course, age is just a number. That’s what people say. Except the people who say it are usually a) hitting on someone much younger than them or b) on their 7th Jaegerbomb on a Monday night.
But it’s true that some people get boring earlier. Some people get adulthood earlier and don’t get boring. Some people stay childish longer and get boring. Or stay boring.
We’re reasonably sure adulthood is a thing, but no one quite knows what to do with it. Some people rush towards is, some people run away from it. Most of us just trip over the edge of it and stumble around for a bit before one day realising:
Shit. I’m doing the adult thing. Look! Look at me adult! I’m gonna adult over here, and then I’m gonna adult over there. And then I’m going to drink until I fall over.
Because, Adulthood, as far as anyone can tell, is not a full time vocation. My Dad is a proper adult. That doesn’t stop him hiding behind trees.
So, how to tell? What warning signs are there that you might be adulting. You could be adulting already… how can you know?
The grave symptoms of that most serious condition: Adulthood.
- Ordering a medium glass of wine, even when it’s someone else’s round
- Owning and using shoe polish. In severe cases, with separate brushes for polish and buffing.
- Pinstripe shirts. Particularly prevalent amongst those working in finance. No one knows why.
- Understanding your pension rather than just assuming someone somewhere gives you money because you keep receiving letters.
- Having two shopping lists, things you want and things you need. And sticking to it. This is particularly worrying when the want list includes things like waterproof trousers- at what stage did your desires reduce to waterproofs?
- Owning furniture. Furniture that you’re quietly cataloging for what you’ll need in the future.
- Wanting flowers to “brighten up” the house.
- Doing your ironing in advance, not clad in pants five minutes before you need to leave for work.
- Having a filing system. One that isn’t a variation of “in that drawer, probably, but it might be stuck to something because I think I split coffee on it”.
- Having ‘Acquired Tastes’ – which is adult speak for eating stuff you don’t like until you like it. (Olives, guys? What’s that about?)
My housemate defines adulthood as being able to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. But hey, he doesn’t own a pin stripe shirt so what does he know?
Sloppy Copy 