Laina Turner, Author
L.C. Turner, Author

Adulting is HARD!

Do you ever feel like you don’t want to adult anymore? I do. It’s so overrated. I would take childhood over this any day!

Who’s with me?!

Isn’t it crazy that when you’re a kid, you can’t wait to become an adult? You think life will be such a breeze. You can do what you want. No one will tell you what to do.

FREEDOM!

Life will be easy peasy.

And then when you finally realize it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and you want no part of it. It’s too late.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, and I love my family. I am truly blessed and couldn’t imagine my world any better but still. Adulting is HARD! And no one will let me quit!

So for fun, I thought I’d list the reasons I find adulting hard and get your take on it.

So here we go!

midlife women

1. Being responsible – not only making sure I do what I have to do but everyone else around me gets their stuff done. The days of ONLY being responsible for myself, and barely that at times, was so much less stressful. The biggest issue was finding my shoes and making sure my socks matched (my mother was a fanatic about that) or remembering to turn in my homework. A far cry from today where I had to sign a permission slip, change the bus widget so my daughter could ride home with someone else, email my son’s teacher back, coordinate rides to basketball practice, and figure out what we were having for dinner when I’m not even going to be there.

2. Metabolism slows down – remember when you could eat a Big Mac meal as a snack and still fit into pants with a waistband? Or a bag of Doritos and ice cream. Maybe even in the same sitting. I do. And that was way back when Big Mac’s were bigger (seriously, what’s happened to the size people). Now I have to work out daily just to burn off the calories in my sparkling water. Don’t even ask me what I have to do to work off a spinach leaf.

3. You need to pay bills – it was so much easier to just beg mom & dad for toys or when I got older a $20 (now they find it strange when I do). Even when I was out on my own, there wasn’t the pressure of a mortgage and car payment. Back before cell phones, it was all about beer money. Or rather 2 liters Bartle’s & James money. You know how many 2-liters you could get for $5 back in the day.

4. You have kids – I admit that kids are pretty awesome. Most of the time. Like when they’re sleeping. Or at grandma’s. But the rest of the time I wonder WTF I was thinking. They require feeding and care. And now that mine are older they need a full-time chauffeur and activities director. And I do this for FREE. FREE!

5. You have to think about grown-up stuff like retirement and investing – nothing worse than lying awake at night thinking you might be working until you’re 80. Paying insurance and saving money for those rainy days when I really want to drop $1500 on a Louis Vuitton bag. #lifeishard

6. You’re more accountable for your bad ideas – there’s no ‘chalk it up to being young’ when you’re in your 40’s or “she didn’t know better’. You actually have to use those critical thinking skills and know there are repercussions for all your actions. And take my advice, Jagermeister is NEVER a good idea no matter what age you are. Just saying.

7. You can’t watch Netflix all day – it is so unfair that there wasn’t Netflix when I was in my early 20’s. Though I may have never finished college if there had been. Binge watching TV is the best thing ever. I could have watched a lot more with my part-time waitressing gig than I can now. Think of all the shows I have missed out on because I can’t devote the equivalent of full time hours to TV watching. Travesty.

8. Presents are practical – thanks mom for the socks. No more Stretch Armstrong or Easy Bake Oven. The first year I moved out on my own my parents gave me a box of canned goods from Santa (ok, I admit that was a pretty cool gift since I was broke from paying bills). The party was truly over.

I know that’s 8, but I was too lazy to change the title. Yes, I know not responsible of me (#1) but consider it a bonus.

I could have kept going, but I didn’t have time to write about the 100 more things on my list, plus it would interfere with my Netflix watching.

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