3.09.2010

Adult Mis-Mash (I apologize in advance)

Things no one told me about being an adult:

You have to pay bills. Like every month.
You have to budget your money so you have money to pay those bills.
Adults still act like gossipy high schoolers some days (a lot of days)
There are still cool kids and uncool kids
Mowing the lawn sucks and you have to do it every week if not more when it's nice out
Lawn mowers have engines which require oil that you have to replace when it's old
The house does not in fact clean itself
If the cat pukes you have to clean it up, and then clean up the pile of puke you threw up while cleaning it up
When you're sick and feel to weak to get yourself juice or water from the kitchen no amount of yelling will make someone bring it to you when you live alone
You have to do things you don't want to do or don't feel like doing....a lot. Actually I would say most of the time.

Talking to friends this weekend we all collectively wondered if this is really what being adult is supposed to be. B even noted that she often wondered when a grown up was going to show up and take care of things.
I'm not sure. I'm just not sure I'm in the best place mentally and emotionally to even honestly answer that question without sounding all jaded and bitter about it. But I'm also not really sure what exactly I'm so jaded and bitter about.

I'm living in the dissonance right now. Between what life is and a vague just out of focus idea of what life is supposed to be. I feel surrounded by people that tell me not to settle for just any man and marry him because I'm 30 while simultaneously being told to settle down and get married already. I'm wondering if it's harping and protesting to much to tell people that I don't know if I want to date anyone at all anymore let alone think about getting married and/or have kids or if it's the truth. I'm wondering if the real reason behind the lack of those desires is massive unopened piles of baggage or just a knowing that those things are just not for me.

It surprises me how many other people feel this way and how little people talk about it until a few beers have been poured and it's late at night after a big dinner of comfort food. I wish more people would talk about it, then maybe I wouldn't feel so crazy. But is it ok that even when people talk about it I still feel alone in the dissonance? Because sometimes I do.

I had such a lovely weekend with friends, but I did to much. I committed to multi-tasking to much because doing tasks gives me a purpose that I'm needed. Because I still don't really believe I have value outside of the tasks that I accomplish. It's still really really hard for me to understand that even if my house is dirty and people have to pour their own coffee or someone else makes the cookies for the serve that I took off to enjoy my time with friends they will still like me, they might even still love me.
I don't trust that people just love me. So I don't ask for help and I over commit and I dodge and deflect and demur that it's really ok and I plaster a smile on my face and say it's ok when I'm just so tired.
I know that when I do this I hurt people after the fact because I write about it and they have to reassure me that it's not true and they love me no matter what and I say thank you and thank you and thank you but as soon as the light is off that sore spot and the time extends from the reassurances I fall back into not believing that people love me all over again.
I do the same thing with God. I try to do things for Him because just being with him doesn't feel like enough. I have to do, serve, run myself into the ground to feel like I'm earning his love and that my friends is a sin that I am trapped in and I can't see my way out.

I'm so sick of it and I don't know how to stop believing that lie.
It also really really pisses me off that this could all very well be hormonally related and not at all reality and I know that the way to fix the unbalanced level of hormones in my body is to lose weight and not be fat but the unbalanced hormones leave me paralyzed with depression and apathy thinking the only way out of this pit is at the end of a box of Little Debbies so I eat and eat and don't work out and I hide and hide under piles of fast food wrappers and melted chocolate.
Around and around and around she goes and where she stops no one knows.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Been having a few spirals of my own as of late (the kind I mentioned in the car with you and A). All I can do is try to remind myself as often as possible that I get to start over as many times as it takes.

I'm going to do my best to remember to pray that you find what you're seeking, a la our conversation in your driveway.

I don't want to hand you platitudes, but I do want to be here for you. You just have to let me know where "here" is, and I'll do all I can.

Less Confused said...

We are constantly living in the shadows of generations before us.

How our houses are supposed to look, when we're supposed to get married, how we spend our time, etc...

Each generation has to battle with that and each generation has to find their own way. Somehow they each do, each trying to find their own way, and each generation it seems to get harder.

I know from experience that it doesn't always help to hear some of this rambling, but the coffee won't let me sit quietly.

But now I'll sit quietly with you and pray. :)