'Adulting'

Let me tell you about the convention we so lovingly call 'Adulting.'

It's the term we come up with once the glamorous illusions in our childhood are pulled back to reveal an ugly, post-pubescent truth.

I'm certain I wasn't the only one who hoped for 16 to come along so we could drive -hoped for 18 to come along so I could watch rated R movies - hoped for 21 to come along so I could drink and vote and buy lottery and cigarettes and every other taboo thing from our youth.

God. It was like the only goal I had - other than becoming the youngest most popular writer in history. OR a secret agent.

At 16 I discovered that no, I was not the youngest most popular writer in history, nor would I have the chance to BECOME that, because there was some other 15 year old girl out there with her picture on the back cover of the dust jacket of a book I was reading. (I mean it wasn't fantastic, but it was hardcover, and half my class had already read it. So that was it then.)

Somewhere around that time I unearthed the heavy physical demands that becoming a secret agent required, and those hopes were dashed too.

So I went, You know what? I can still become a famous, spiffy, popular writer who gets fan letters and goes to book signings where my vision can be shared with other people, and they can understand these vivid, fantastical dreams of my heart.

So I aimed for that.

And you know what? My goals have gone from that to being able to pay rent every month, feed myself the bare minimum for survival, pay all my life-sucking bills, and still have enough for a smoothie after the gym (whose membership I cannot afford to pay, so I am someone's privileged free-guest.) Writing? In November, during NaNoWriMo, because that's the only thing I seem to be able to do - muster up the gumption to pump out a load of nonsense within 30 days, because it's the only time I feel the encouragement to even try poking at the dead-horse-dream that my inner infant can't let go of.

Everything that dreams filled you with as a kid is slowly and effortlessly drained away by our desires to be adults, that when we get there, we 'understand' the futility of dreams, and easily cast them aside for the 'reality' of life.

THAT is 'Adulting'.

Welcome to Hell.