Nobody tells you about all this. Not the books, the movies or the music videos.
You grow up with misinformation. Being an adult is glamorous. It's all cars and shopping and staying out late. It's money you don't have to account for to anybody else. It's boyfriends and late-night parties in exotic locations. Somehow, you grow up with an idea in your head that the only thing standing in the way of a super-amazing life and you is an official government document that places your age at 18 and being out from under your parents' noses.
Here I am, more than a decade past that 18, desperately trying to prevent myself from thinking about the fact that I will inevitably hurtle into my 30s in about 6 months. And I have now been privy to all the realities of adulthood that popular culture has long lied to me about.
Adulthood means responsibility, above everything else. Getting up in the morning well before you want to so that you can take out the trash, get the milk, bring in the newspaper and let in the maid. Telling the cook what to make, buying vegetables and meat on the evening before so she will have something to make and packing your own lunch. Far from being carefree with money, you realize you now have a ton of things to plan for. Before your monthly paycheck is even in your bank account, most of the incoming money has been earmarked for dreadfully mundane things like rent, salaries (for the aforementioned maid/cook, watchmen, etc.), flight tickets and bill payments.
Ah, the glories and joy of paying bills. Not one of those music videos with J.Lo singing about 'Love Don't Cost a Thing' spend any time reflecting on how bills are paid. The first ten days of any month is spent juggling numerous bill that flood into your mailbox. From internet to cable to the newspaper, everything needs to be paid for. Thank heavens for e-banking.
Look, maybe I didn't enter adulthood with too many illusions. I grew up around a perpetually stressed out single parent who had to struggle to make ends meet and I watched her bend over backwards trying to figure out how to pay for things. I didn't once see her dressed up to the nines on her way to a party or taking off without a care to a beachside holiday. But the truth is, I thought these were our special circumstances. I thought when I was 'grown up', I wouldn't have kids and would be able to do all those things. And I have. I take several holidays a year, often in exotic locations. Although I don't party as much as my peers (given the teetotalling and general misanthropy) I do quite frequently find myself in an expensive dress and high heels on my way to club.
What I did not expect was the exhaustion that responsibility brings with it. At the end of each day, I'm just tired. Not the kind of tired that comes with physical exertion (because let's face it, I haven't been to my very expensive gym in nearly two months) but the bone-weary kind that comes with constantly having to think about consequences. Because that is the biggest difference between childhood and adulthood: worrying about consequences. Worrying about consequences is in essence being responsible. If I don't wake up and take out the trash, my whole house will smell. If I don't pay my electricity bill, the power company will cut my supply. If I don't buy vegetables, tell the cook exactly how to prepare them and pack them for lunch, I will find myself ordering yet another unhealthy restaurant meal that my aging body can ill-afford.
So, here's the thing; it's a mixed bag. Clearly, I am having a much better time than my mother did at my age, when she had two small children and no help or money to raise them. But I find that I am also surprised by the unanticipated accompaniments of adulthood. No major pronouncements on the nature of life today, I have to go online and pay my internet bill.
