Moving Forward

The new “adult”

Last week I read this little comic strip someone posted online, which, I thought about including as an attachment here but I didn’t want to infringe upon copyright laws and all that so I will just describe it to you: a man comes to a woman’s apartment to ask her out and upon opening the door, he discovers that she has filled her entire apartment with plastic balls from a Chuck E Cheese-like establishment. He is flabbergasted; he asks her why on Earth she would do this and her response is golden: she says, coolly, “I’m an adult and it’s my turn now to decide what that means”. Damn. This stuck in my mind like philosophical ribs in brain teeth. I couldn’t shake how much it floored me, this innocent, yet profound little strip changed my ENTIRE way of thinking.

Motivation to write on this flooded me, the writing adrenaline made my muscles twitch and I haven’t slept well in days because I have been piecing together just how the hell I wanna do this and what I could possibly say that would get across how I feel. It came down to this: apply this new theory to every situation on Earth- politics, religion, economics, math, science, art, music etc- a HUGE project and something that would end up looking like a doctoral thesis and, more importantly, a bumbling mess because I neither have the fortitude or knowledge to accurately relate these topics, or I could minimize it to my life and make a list of how I want to be an adult. I chose the latter. (duh).

So, how do I make this work? This is what’s been keeping me up, I have the
theory but I need to apply it. I started by making a list of the things that one would consider “adult” . Here are the big ones:

• Have a real job
• Own a home
• Have kids
• Have a bank account-both checking and savings (maybe even some stock)
• act professional
• Pay your own bills
• Be responsible
• Have at least a general idea of how the world works based on personal trial and error. i.e. “experience”.

Now, I’m not saying that these are requirements, and I know many people who are much more “Adult” than me who don’t fall under these, I’m making gross generalizations based on what our society has set as “guidelines” for adults. However, I fall under most of these because I’ve tried really hard to adhere to them. Notice anything about this list? How most of the categories are based on possession? Having things. This is how the world sees adults- as people who have stuff, material or knowledge. Is it bad? absolutely not, I love having stuff. I like security, it helps me sleep. But, this list is incomplete. It’s missing all of the fun, there’s no spice! It’s like a huge pot of stew made up of all the ingredients necessary to be successful but its super bland because the cook forgot salt.

I’m changing this, for myself and my family at least. I worked my whole life to get where I am today, comfortable, and now that I’m here I’m realizing that I’m not so much bored, but that there are gaps I could be filling in to make my life and being an adult more fun, less adherent to antiquated ideas and way more epic. The first step is to throw out all of the unnecessary notions that come with being an adult like being responsible. Now, before I get myself in trouble, let me clarify: I don’t mean that I’m going to stop being responsible altogether! Christ, I’ve got a child on the way! What I mean is that I’m going to stop fretting so much over every little thing and just start enjoying the shit out of my life! I have a wonderful wife and soon-to-be wonderful daughter and I want to let myself cut loose sometimes, do dumb things and not worry about consequences or if I should be acting a certain way. I want my daughter to be a free spirit, to ask questions, explore, always have or seek happiness and not be hinged to a certain set of social rules and I think the best way for her to do those things is for me and my wife to lead by example. I get so caught up sometimes on trying to keep myself from making a mistake or ruing stupid things I’ve done because they resulted in shame or slightly uncomfortable situations. Situations that I realize, now, have no important bearing on my present or future and only bring me shame because I let them. I’m stopping that now.

Secondly, I want to act impulsively. This one may be harder to get my wife on board with but I think it will make our marriage and lives better. I have always been a planner: I need itineraries and maps, I need agendas and activities and I need neatly organized, time slots for each thing so I can compartmentalize. This is crazy! Why would anyone do this and how is it any fun? I want to be able to pick a day, grab the family and just go do something fun, unplanned and completely free of time constraint. And I want to apply this to all aspects of my life. ‘A road less traveled’ kind of approach, in which, when presented with two or more possibilities, choosing the one that I almost never would normally. That way, I can take off the blinders once in a while and really experience life and also take a few risks to keep my rebellious side quenched.