Let me start here; this s**t feels like a scam and I would like to cancel my subscription!

Maybe that’s a little dramatic but truly my adult years (the few I have under my belt) feel nothing like I imagined as a child. Growing up I was sold illusions of a blissful kind of freedom. I was looking forward to not having the ‘big people’ tell me what to do. But then, I finally crossed the threshold and realized – there was no one telling me what to do! How can the part I anticipated the most be the bane of the entire transition?

And to make things even more complex, there’s more that they didn’t tell us while we fantasized about our adult years. So here are some hard truths I wish someone told me about adulthood.

1. You Have Real Responsibilities

While back in the day we pretty much only worried about grades, what we’ll have for lunch or, keeping track of our favourite shows in the adult years, that gets swapped for keeping a tight schedule, paying bills on time, making the best financial decisions and an extensive list of other duties that we were never necessarily prepared for. Furthermore, everything you do or don’t do has consequences. Don’t pay bills on time, and then they cut the utilities; neglect your health and wellness then spend thousand on doctors and treatments; forget meetings and deadlines then you miss out on opportunities. It takes a lot of planning, focus, mental fortitude, and occasionally a strong drink.

2. You Have to Fix Your Own Problems

There is no calling in mommy or daddy when things get tough. If things go wrong, 99% of the time you have to sort through the issue yourself. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m certain our parents are happy to help out in rough times but they won’t be there for all the problems that will arise. Personally, I try never to call my mom to get me out of any bad situations. I think I don’t want here to feel like I can’t manage on my own. I want to retain that independence. But, we’ll discuss that in another post.

3. Friends Won’t Always Have Time to Hang Out

Unlike school days where we all basically had the same schedule and we saw our friends every day, adulthood is more of a gamble. So no, there won’t always be sleepovers or big Lymes or games night. All the schedules vary, some of your friends may even move overseas or to a different parish/state. For whatever reason, it becomes extremely difficult to pin down everyone at the same time, all the time.

4. You Will Actually Have Less Free Time

Between working, pursuing that big business idea, maybe school and other personal responsibilities you won’t really have a lot of free time in your schedule but you must carve some downtime whenever you can. There is no award for being overworked, drained and always busy. But the saying really does hold true – when we are young, we have a lot of time to fill with many adventures, but no money to do it, and as adults, we have the money to but we don’t really have the time.

5. The Adults We Look Up to are Trying Just as Hard as Us

The real kicker is, no one truly has a handle on this thing. Even those who seem to get through it seamlessly and successfully are really just giving it their best shot. So while it looks like perfection to us, it is a lot of trial and error for them. And since there is no blueprint, there is no right or wrong way and we’ll just be trying to figure it out and make the best decisions for the rest of our lives.