I originally planned to write an essay on how to deal with adulting–a guide on the subject, if you will. However, I felt completely overwhelmed by the task soon after I started. Though I had no trouble filling the pages, I filled them with platitudes. No matter how many words I put on paper, I struggled to say anything meaningful or make a coherent point. I watched in horror as the word counter bloated until it became a parody of a too-well-fed man, mocking my incompetence as a dietician. A new approach was needed.
I realized that I was trying to teach something I was hopelessly underqualified to teach. At any rate, adulting is an impossible subject. I could give tips—some of which might be helpful—but I couldn’t do so with any authority or confidence. So, I scratched everything I had written and decided to write about something that I am an expert—the expert—on: how adulting has felt to me. So, I went about my days as usual, except for taking the time to notice what I felt or thought about this whole adulting business. The results are below.
Monday
Do you know the feeling when it’s 8:00 p.m., you have several days’ worth of assignments due at midnight, you’ve not done a single thing all week, and you have no clue where to start? That’s what adulting feels like–constantly. Time, once a boundless ocean, has now shrunk to a dying lake, its fringes exposed to the merciless wind. Adulting is always running out of time.
Adulting also feels like a lonely battle. It’s you against the world, and no help is forthcoming. It’s a last stand with no witness.
Sometimes, my friends tell me I should be more cheerful.
Tuesday
Some days, you get so busy that you forget how busy you are. It’s the fight response of the 21st-century fight-or-flight, where the body, long exhausted of its natural reserve of energy, is kept alive by the unnatural fuel of caffeine and adrenaline.
Then you catch a break and let yourself collapse–soaking up the downtime like a dry towel in a puddle of water.
Wednesday
It’s been two months since I moved into my new apartment, and some of my stuff is still trapped in half-forgotten boxes in the corner.
Today, I finally found enough grit to open one. First, I found some photos, then a hand-drawn birthday card, then some old souvenirs that summon echos in my mind. I’ve opened my box of mementos.
It took a while to get through everything. At first, I tried to find a home for each item in the gaps on my shelves, but that didn’t feel right. Everything seemed to connect to everything else, and I would be hiding horcruxes around my room if I separated them. They belonged together.
So, I cleared an area on my favorite shelf and placed each memento in a semi-circle so they all faced the viewer. Then, in the center, I seated the amulet and satchel of fragrances my mother gave me. With that, I made a shrine on the top of my shelf. It honors no particular deity but the worth of life itself. Moreover, it extends a transformative power over the space around it, turning my room from a place of abode to a place of shelter.
Now, I try to take some time each day to contemplate in front of my shrine. Occasionally, I would add something to it. Years ago, I would’ve dismissed such behavior as sentimentalism or superstition, but I’m coming to terms with that.
Thursday
You can be sad about many things: losing someone close, frustrated hopes, or having to bear your burdens alone.
But you can also be sad about nothing in particular—or, rather, be sad about everything at once. You can suddenly be sad when, a moment ago, you were having the best time of your life. Sometimes, the sadness passes like a sunshower while, at other times, it hangs heavily in the air like a pending thunderstorm. It’s a sadness so shapeless that even the most eloquent tongues fail at description.
Yet, like pimples, we all catch this sadness at some point. It’s this sadness that makes you cry to your favorite songs and movies because they get you like no one will. And though we may sob alone, it’s comforting to know that, on the vast interweb, someone on the other side is crying to the same song.
Friday
Idle time is among those things that we only appreciate as grown-ups. It’s the temporal equivalent of porridge–bland, yet perfect to reset your palate after a feast. Spices and stimulation are as addictive as any drug, requiring ever-increasing quantities to achieve the same joyous effects. And, just as a palate used to heavy seasoning will struggle to taste subtle flavors, overstimulation of the mind will dull your capacity to enjoy the simpler moments of life.
Today, we are always doing something. Even when we are free from obligations, we fill the gaps with information, stimulation–things. The noise of things drowns out all feelings of existence to the point that you forget yourself, even lose yourself, in them.
I have been trying to go longer without doing anything—no task, no distraction, no noise. Sometimes, when it’s really quiet, I can hear the faint music of existence playing in the background.
Saturday
It was raining heavily when I heard what sounded like a cat shrieking outside. I went to the window, but it was too dark to see what it was. The result of the debate that followed in my head was never in doubt, for though my room was warm and dry, my curiosity had already lept out of the window, and I knew I couldn’t call it back. So, I put on my jacket, ran downstairs, and opened the door to the outside–and all its dark, cold wetness. I swallowed my hesitation and rushed into the rain. Soon, I was awarded for my perseverance–a raccoon about the size of a large house cat was skulking under a tree about 15 feet in front of me. I took a step as lightly as I could manage, but it noticed me, scurried up the tree, and landed on top of the wall next to it. Now, we are locked in a stalemate as the rain grew heavier around us. I tried to parlay, offering terms of shelter and food if it came down and let me pet it, to no avail. And so, after about a minute or two, it scampered away as quickly as it came. I went back inside, drenched and shivering–but all the happier for it.
Sunday
With so many things taking up my time and energy, I’ve come to appreciate things that are clearly the result of effort. For example, I walked by a restaurant today. It had a patio semi-enclosed by planters about knee height. Inside is a mountain of succulents and other unnamed plants that have grown so well that they lept from one planter to another until they consolidated into a hedge. Yet, despite its mass, the succulent hedge is perfectly proportioned, with each leaf contributing much more than its meager self to the balance and beauty of the whole. Having tried my hands at growing succulents, I can recognize the hard work and care the gardener must have put into it.
I walked inside the restaurant and marveled at the equally well-arranged interior. The matching tables and chairs were placed just the right distance from each other. Pillowed couches lined the walls, spotless and welcoming. Even the striped wallpaper complemented the other furniture perfectly. Yet, no one was inside to appreciate this work of art except for me and a lone cashier.
I bought something partly because I was hungry, but more because I felt such effort of mind and hands deserved compensation. I sat on the patio. The succulents, still plump with the morning’s rain, shone brightly under the afternoon sun. I thought of opening a place like this myself one day and how much work that would take. I sometimes struggle with basic tasks like making phone calls and writing emails–and opening a restaurant must require making many phone calls and writing many emails! I recall someone telling me that nothing worth doing is easy. Perhaps he meant to motivate me; whether that worked, the jury is still out. In the meantime, I admit that no matter how much work it took to grow and prune those succulents, it was definitely worth it.
Monday
The rain hasn’t stopped in 3 days–somehow, it only rains over the weekend this year. Heaven is displeased with us having fun, but I’ve run out of fuck to give. The music is on full blast–November Rain by Guns N’ Roses. I shouldn’t be driving this fast, but it would be a waste of a good song if I didn’t. As I sped along the freeway, the lights of the city opened up to me. What does adulting feel like? Top of the world.
Post Script
I began this essay back in November 2023–6 months ago. It took this long, not for its length or complexity, but because I got stuck. I had a pretty good skeleton of the essay soon after I started. But, I was quickly bogged down trying to find my voice in the scribbled lines of what I wrote. I had written a lot without saying anything. It was excruciating. Consequently, I procrastinated HARD, constantly finding excuses to not read or even touch the essay. And when I do summon up the gun-ho to “finish the essay” (a recurring guest on my calendar, so much so that it ought to start paying rent), all I end up doing is revising the same words and the same lines over and over again.
I should have realized sooner that I struggled because I wasn’t writing sincerely or honestly. I wanted to write about adulting, this much I knew. But, as soon as I laid down the first few lines, I stopped following my heart and, in its place, became a heartless bureaucrat handing out decrees on proper adulting–hence the original plan of writing a guide. The problem was that I didn’t have much to teach–since I was just as confused as anyone about adulting. Therefore, there was no audience that I could convince.
More importantly, by trying to make up nice, bullet-pointed tips, I had abandoned what compelled me to write about adulting in the first place: my feelings. I didn’t want to write about adulting because I thought I had some particular insights; I wanted to write about adulting because it had brewed up a storm inside me. In light of this, the change in the formatting and purpose of this essay is, in fact, a return to my original inspiration. It should be no surprise that I found writing to be much easier after that.
Now, I stuck a note above my desk that reads, “Always write from the heart.” It is appropriate that my attempts to teach others ended up teaching me even more. – 4/17/2024
Derrick Liu 