This rambling comes to you, at least partially, from a version of me shoveling chocolate-covered cashews into my mouth. As I lie in bed with my notes app open, thoughts churning like the digestive tracts of people who can’t kick their iceberg lettuce habit, I can’t help but spiral over how I’ve been feeling lately.
Bad. The answer is bad.
People tell you not to rush into adulthood. They remind you over and over when you’re twenty, hot, and still living with your mother that life is only going to get harder from there. And because you’re twenty, love all your clothes, and have never had to think too hard about economics, you assume it’ll never really happen to you.
Wrinkles? Sure.
Gray hair at the temples? Of course.
But soul-crushing pressure settling onto your chest like an elephant, or at the very least a morbidly obese cat? I wasn’t expecting that one to hit quite so hard. I also wasn’t prepared for the velocity of life to double year after year.
This is the time of year when I become aware of all the things slipping through the cracks despite my obsession with maintaining control. My garden is overgrown, my kid has eaten chicken nuggets more times than I'd like to admit this week, and I just took a shower for the first time in three days. And still the to-do list multiplies.
No matter how much I try to ready myself, it seems like my body always revolts against me when things get stressful. I come down with a mysterious illness that lands me in the hospital. My insomnia comes back in full swing right as the calendar turns the page on July.
Maybe life has always been this horribly exhausting once you cross the threshold out of juvenile court. Perhaps not for you. Definitely for your working mother.
It reminds me of a very specific memory. I am fourteen years old and President Obama is addressing the nation. I hear the word recession for the first time and assume he meant regression. Close enough, I figured. I’m pretty sure that’s where my curiosity ended and I went back to watching an episode of Jersey Shore.
I wonder where my mom was.
Probably already in bed before 7 p.m., trying to steal a few hours of sleep before another shift. Maybe doing the math on what extra hours she’d have to pick up to keep paying the mortgage. While I was confusing economic collapse with a vocabulary lesson, she was living through it.
I don’t necessarily believe that my unseriousness came from malice. I knew we were poor. I knew not all of my classmates shared my deep-rooted love for the day-old bread store. But I was happy, or at least blissfully distracted by my irrevocable optimism.
Until recently, I thought it was infinite. Like a bottomless bowl of fortune cookies, every slip of paper carrying the exact same message: Everything always works out.
That bowl is still full of fortune cookies. They just contain a much wider range of messages now.
“An article about the impending scarcity of fresh water is in your future.”
Or:
“Today is not your day. Tomorrow, unfortunately, isn’t looking great either.”
I keep cracking them open hoping to find reassurance or a coupon for more hours in the day.
Right now, I wake up feeling already behind. My phone is demanding my attention, and there are tiny hands I have to keep away from hot stoves. Sometimes I look around and wonder if everyone else is just better at pretending they have it all under control.
Back to the twenty-year-old in a tie-dye T-shirt and black swim shorts…
I think I’d like to get back to her.
I’d like to wander into her room, tapping on bookshelves and knocking things over, trying to warn her about all the things that are coming.
She wouldn’t fucking listen to me.
Honestly, I don’t think I’d want her to.
Maybe every generation deserves a few years where they think the adults have everything under control.
So what am I doing about it all? Great question. Probably not much, because I am not so sure this is just a me problem. Everyone I know is struggling in some way right now. Maybe not with the little worlds they’ve created for themselves, but with the world we are all being forced to live in.
But if I had to make a list…
Survive August.
Buy another bag of fortune cookies.
Pull the mini shorts out of retirement.
Start making things with my hands again.
Read more books.
Tell my mom thank you.