5 Reasons I'm Failing at Being an Adult

I do pretty well with this whole "being an adult" thing. I have a job, I pay my bills, I feed myself. But sometimes, it's really only those basics that happen.

1. I can't keep my bedroom clean. 
Seriously. I literally don't remember the last time I cleaned it, and now it looks like a hoarder lives here. I keep everything in vaguely organized piles on the floor.

Source

2. I have trouble answering emails and returning phone calls. 
I'm always at work when I get them and I think, "Oh, I'll answer those later." Lol, NOPE.

3. I don't know how to write a resumé. 
Really. I never learned how to do this.

4. I avoid making doctor's appointments. 
It's mostly because I haven't gotten around to looking for one. Because that sounds like work.

Source

5. I didn't back up my hard drive. 
This seems to me like a basic thing that most computer-using folks do, but I didn't do it. And so when my computer was stolen last month I lost all of my files including my last NaNoWriMo attempt which was unfinished but 30,000 WORDS OF STUFF I ACTUALLY LIKED.

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What about you guys? Which "being an adult" tasks always manage to get left undone in your house?

To the a-holes who broke into my house last month:

I am filled with righteous anger to such a degree that it is completely consuming me. It's totally beyond my comprehension why people think it's okay to go into other people's houses. I want to believe that you chose to do this to me because you were starving and desperate to feed your family, because our society failed you to such a degree that you felt you had no other choice, instead of the more likely scenario, which is that you did this because you need to fuel your drug addiction.

The loss of my stuff isn't really the issue. They're just things, replaceable material possessions that have no true meaning. A computer, a television.

The fact that you stole my pillowcase is what is fueling my rage. It's inconsequential to you, merely a handy, bag-like apparatus to carry your loot in.

But to me, really, it's deeper than that.

Humans are in such a vulnerable state when they sleep that their beds are supposed to be a safe haven, a sacred space.

You went into my sacred space without my permission, put your hands all over my things, left traces of your presence all over everything, so that every time I look at my pillow, stripped bare, I'll remember that someone whose face I'll never see touched it, defiled it.

Common sense and experience tells me that time will dull my sense of having been violated.

I'm trying to be a good person here. I'm trying not to wish the same thing upon you, but if we're being completely honest, I hope someone else violates your life the way you've done mine.

I wrote this after someone broke into the house where I live with my roommates. I came home to find a side window open, and several of our valuable possessions gone. The material possessions are inconsequential, but the life experience of having to file a police report and have them dust for fingerprints is one that I'd rather not have. My anger has subsided since I wrote this, fading into merely an intense annoyance paired with an odd sadness at the ordeal rather than uncontrollable rage. Merely the writing and publishing of this post has been both helpful and therapeutic for me.

My last post was a month ago.

I used to think that to be a blogger, you had to have a fancy-looking blog, make lots of posts, be good at connecting with other bloggers, be clever and funny, or thoughtful, or have something important to say about politics, society, movies, music, or your religion or lack thereof. I used to think that if I wanted to be a blogger I had to write certain things, write a certain amount, be a certain thing.

But I also think that the world is full of people who talk a lot and don't really say anything. And I also think that I don't want to be one of those people.

Just like I don't want to be eat all the lies society is feeding me, I don't want to believe all of the expectations of being a blogger I've come to think actually exist.

I'd rather write for quality, not quantity. I'd rather not clutter up the internet further with things that, in the end don't really matter. I'd rather not use this blog simply as another way to get people to like me, like I've attempted in the past. I'd rather write something honest instead of something contrived.

I'll write again. You can count on that. You'll just have to wait until I have something to say.

This post could be ranty.

So tune in or tune out accordingly.

A friend of mine, B, was speaking with an older mutual friend earlier today. (I'm not using names to protect the innocent and well-intentioned.) She has a similar employment situation as I do. B is a college graduate, she works two service industry jobs, and she is as clueless about her future as I am about mine.

Before we continue, let me make it clear that both of us are okay with these facts about our lives. 

Aforementioned older friend asked B if she was still working at her current employment. She replied that she was. Then, he asked, "Are you looking for anything else?"

If we're friends, or if you've ever been this situation, then you just cringed so hard. For the majority of mid-twenties college graduates these days, our least favorite question is "So what are you doing next?"

I DON'T KNOW. I'm twenty-seven and I don't have my life planned out, thank you very much and would you please stop asking me that?!

We know that you just want to know about our lives and get to know us. But when we tell you we're working at Starbucks and not in a "career" your next response should not be "Are you looking for anything else?"

When you do this, you're telling us that what we're doing isn't good enough, that it's somehow shameful. You're telling us that the lies society is feeding that your job defines you are true. You're subtly inserting a sense of shame into our hearts about the way that we spend our time and earn our money, shame that has no business being there in the first place.

I know that this older friend didn't mean anything by the question. He didn't mean to make B feel bad. But it still happened. 

B and I complained about our mutual problem for a while, and brushed it off fairly quickly. I'm grateful to have overheard the experience, however unpleasant for her it may have been. Sometimes I forget that this doesn't just happen to me, that it happens to other people, too.  It's reassuring when you realize that other people have the same problems as you do.

I know that some of you, friends, have had experiences like this. I'd love it if you'd commiserate with me and share in the comments. 

Change

This week has been one of the strangest weeks in my memory, so full of contrasting events and emotions that I'm almost not sure how to process it.

This week has left me feeling both affirmed and cut down. Elated and deflated.

Some of you know what's up, and some of you don't. And that will just have to do. I can't really talk about it on an open forum like this. All I can say is that there are big changes coming my way. I know that in the long run, I'll be better off than I was before, but change has never been easy for me.

This week has also left me feeling so incredibly grateful for my family, especially my mom who always lets me call her on the phone when I'm crying and inconsolable, and to my friends. I'm grateful for my wonderful internet friends who have been sending me good thoughts and internet hugs all week. And I'm perhaps most grateful for my super cool roommates-my best friends and sisters.

I wish I could tell all, friends, because I desperately need that catharsis. I hate feeling so mixed up. I hate not knowing if I should be happy or sad, even though I know that most of life is not one or the other. Life is not made up of black and white, but grey, and it is that grey area I have such trouble living in.

Life is change and grey areas and disappointments and happiness, and I feel like I'm finally learning how to let it all go and not worry so much about everything all the time. It's so noticeable a change, that I hardly recognize myself sometimes. I'm finally starting to like the person I am.

Morning Ritual

It's no secret that I love coffee. I work at Starbucks. Coffee is my life. One of my favorite coffee-related things is the french press.

It's so relaxing for me to make one on my day off. It's almost a ritual.

Measuring out and grinding the beans. Waiting for the kettle to boil, listening for the scream that tells me I'm one step closer to my cup of coffee. Slowly pouring the hot water over the grounds. Waiting again, four agonizing minutes while the timer tick-tick-ticks away until it finally rings and my heart leaps. Pressing the filter down, taking care not to rush. Pouring the coffee into my favorite cup. Taking that first sip, letting it warm me from the inside out, and relaxing into my morning.

I don't feel like entertaining you.

I'm on an honesty kick. I'm busy with work lately, and I've started working out more too, so I don't really have the energy to be fun and entertaining, which is, sometimes, what I imagine blogging is for. Entertaining the masses. Being funny and engaging so that people will like you, you'll be popular, and feel better about yourself. If this is getting to angsty for you, I understand. But sometimes you just have to get your issues out, put them out into internetland where someone might read it and understand and for a moment you might not feel so alone.

My boss asked me today if I thought I deserved success, and I nearly started crying because I didn't want to tell her "no." I almost didn't want to admit it to myself. From a Christian standpoint, we don't deserve anything, but that's another conversation entirely. But everyone should want themselves to do well, to exceed at whatever they've chosen to do with their life. Right?

It's not so much that I believe I deserve to fail, so much as I'm not sure I believe I deserve to succeed. The main problem is that I remember all the bad things I've done, every mistake I've made, everyone I've hurt, every time I made a fool out of myself, and my brain collects them and plays them like a movie reel in my head to make me feel the scum of the earth.

If you're Christian like me, you're going to say to me that no one deserves success, no one deserves anything, which is what makes Grace so powerful. If I actually got what I deserved, my life would be very different.

But this seems a little different. Success is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe you're going to fail, then you probably will. If I keep waiting for the bottom to drop out at work, waiting for it to start getting horrible for me again, then it will. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but eventually it will.

So how do I start believing I deserve to succeed at anything? How to I go from a glass-half-empty to a glass-half-full type? At this point it seems like a genuine personality change. I'm mostly faking it right now. I have this struggle between my emotional heart and my logical brain, and I'm at that point where success is the struggle. As long as my logic and my emotions are still at war with each other then I still have a chance, I haven't given up on myself yet. But is this success at all, even a little bit? Or is it just treading water?