The Tumblr Conundrum

I’ve decided that I’m going to stop pretending that I’m not an adult. Adults are, by the safest definition possible, people who are responsible for themselves and if nothing else, I am that. Oh, and I pay for my own Netflix. So yeah. Adult.  

Somewhere in my past, 18-year-old me is raising her hand so she can ask when we stopped being an adult because she’s convinced that she is one, poor dear. She’ll take ten seconds to evaluate my life and say that yes, empirically, I’ve been an adult this whole time. I’ve been basically financially independent since starting college, I’ve paid for my own heath insurance since I was 19, I’ve done my own taxes for years, I’ve taken care of all of my basic needs on my own, and I had a job, almost a career, for four years straight, that I left of my own accord to pursue an academic field I'm interested in. Plus, dude*, you’re 27. There’s absolutely no way that anyone over the age of 25 can consider themselves as anything other than an adult. Just not possible. 

Then again, I have Batman sheets, a stuffed Sadness from Inside Out and a tumblr, so really, whether I truly qualify as an adult or not is anyone’s guess.

The thing is, I don’t feel immature or irresponsible or childish or incapable. I could have bought taupe sheets and deleted my tumblr and that wouldn’t change the underlying fact that I don’t feel like I’ve grown up any in terms of responsibility since I started college. I had the future-focus and life-planning skills down early on in life and I’ve always had a good head on my shoulders about most things. I like to see myself as an old soul that took a couple of years off to take in the things about life that I missed enjoying when I was busy being serious. I sing and laugh a lot more now than I did in high school. I think the diversion from adulthood was worth it, if it means I get to keep that.

So now, I guess, it’s time for the pendulum to swing back. It’s high time I started taking myself seriously again and regained some focus. To that end, I’ll start being more thoughtful before I speak and more intentional when I write. I think I’ll take Fridays as a chance to start writing a little more concretely about science and religion as a way of solidifying all the new knowledge that I have, with an eye to moving the best of that over to a more professional blog in the future. And though there’s a tired little part of my soul that’s sighing in disgust right now because she doesn’t care to be doing work of any kind, I think we’ve got to listen to the voice of reason here. 

Just maybe not all the time. 

Sadness Selfie! Because everything is improved with Sadness. 

*I don’t think I would have said dude when I was 18. Too busy trying to be pretentious. But I’m going to project some of my current moxie backwards anyway. History is written by the victors.