So. Adulting.
      English is such a special language. I once read it described as the type of language that, rather than ‘borrowing’ from other tongues the way most do, corners the other world languages alone in dark allies and beats them up to appropriate bits of parlance.
      Seems legit.
      Adulting – the being adult-y of adult-life – is hard fucking work these days. I imagine it always was, and I am not poo-pooing the hardships of previous generations; particularly because we really have it very easy compared to many that came before us. Yet we American adults between the ages of 25 and 45, definitely have it harder than our parents did.
      They could buy a house on a single-paycheck income, from a non-college-educated career. They could own cars and hell – campers and extra property and motorcycles and shit. They *did* do that.
      Us?
      I don’t know many couples in 2016 who can afford to LIVE on one income, let lone own their own home, plus the rest of it. A few, perhaps, often those “lucky” enough to have had some family help, an inheritance, or other boon.
      It is just a different world now.
      And that’s okay. Mark and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that the things our parents had and could provide for their children are not the same things we’ll have and provide for the kids we can’t afford to have.
      But it is frustrating.
      Worse to realize how little so many people acknowledge this. How many people are voting against the establishment and against CHANGING this disparity. How many people are ignoring the signs of the fall of our civilization to maintain some ridiculous white-man-in-power-shitting-on-everyone-else power balance status quo.
      UGH.
      Adulting is a constant state of panic for me.
      A constant string of “Did I turn off the oven?” or “Did I pay that bill on time?” or “How do I make Chicken Parmesan? Why am I thirty-five and do not just know this?” or “Why is the science oven on fire?”.

      The last one is a joke, I haven’t set a microwave on fire since 1996 and that piece of shit was 20 years old at the time.
      Adulthood is not surviving a series of catastrophes all in a row, it is surviving a thousand concurrent disasters/neutral experiences/pleasures all going on at the same time, incessantly. Forever. Until you die.
      It is a constant string of things I hate that I have to do to exist in the modern world (i.e. work a soul-crushing job 40+ hours a week, unending household chores like dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, charging electronic devices, working a soul-crush…oh, said that one already. Oops.) punctuated by a few bright spots of things I get to do because I live in the modern world (i.e. kiss my husband, play with my puppy, play video games, watch TV shows and movies on-demand day or night, text my mom 3000 miles away and get instant response, and play Pathfinder with the people I love).
      It is the struggle to get through six days a week, just to enjoy that seventh one.

      I really am going to complain the whole time. Sorry about that, Mark.
      Adulting is responsibilities.
      And I’m okay with that.
      I’m perfectly fine with being on-time, respecting the space and wishes of other people, with being considerate of the folk around me (i.e. not moving FUCKING FURNITURE OR VACCUUMING AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT, Wendy, you TWAT WAFFLE!), and with paying my bills, voting, paying taxes, and working a grown-up job.
      But when the deck is stacked so unfairly against us, when there is literally no hope to ever breathe without an albatross of student debt, unfair credit practices, and the insane cost of living expenses around our necks…
      Adulting sucks.
      End of story.
      I hope that if I ever get to raise a child, I help instill in them a respect for other people and a hearty appreciation of how fucking easy kids have it, before Adulthood rears its ugly head.
      I did not appreciate childhood, fully.
      I sure would if I had it to do over, knowing what I do now. But then, I guess that’s true for most of us.
      Not all.
      Anyway… adulting is not all bad. We get to buy the food we want (mostly) and enjoy the things we like and want to do (mostly). We get to make-out up against the wall of the basement while our friends get ready for a session of Pathfinder (haha!) and have sexual fun times and that’s pretty sweet.
      Of course… adulting is made even harder and more frustrating for me, being that I am introverted and lean heavily toward hermitiness (hermit-ism? hermitness). Because once I’ve “done” my adulting for the day and I’m ready to just be Josie, rather than Grown-Up Josie, and I have to “do” more adulting… *sigh* I channel my inner Tituss Andromedon and…

Note: Image is “fail” by me