I am in the throes of adulthood. In a few months I’ll be 30 years old. I’m teetering on the brink of infanthood gazing down at the valley of grown ups below and standing right on the edge.

My little mushroom toes are craning their tiny necks to get a peak of the adult world below…but my inner toddler is terrified and about to piss her pants. Don’t make me go down there! Let’s stay up here where it’s safe and warm!

You know that Britney Spears song? I’m Not a Girl? Not Yet a Grown-up. Or something like. I’m Not a Girl, Not Even a Woman…I think that’s how it went. She’s standing on the cliff…yeah you know the song. Anyway that’s me. I am not a girl..not yet a grown up either. I am pivoting on the edge of that cliff. Please no one push me.

A lot has happened since I last spoke about adulthood. From the outside it appears that I have become an adult. I have ticked off the long list of things expected of a human my age.

My boyfriend, has very graciously offered me a ring in exchange for my life-long servitude and I have of course accepted. And all I have to do in return is lose my name, identity, sense of self and a couple of years off my life expectancy. But what a small price to pay for eternal happiness, ey?

I’m only joking of course (about the servitude thing). He’s my best friend and I just see this as a friendship upgrade. We’re going from friends to family 🙂

 

 

Also his surname is Ellis and I want to pretend I am the daughter of the guy who wrote American Psycho (which I happen to be reading at the moment).

So I am engaged to a man. Did I mention that I’m just 9 years old? That’s right..I am still only 9 years old and fuck me I am getting married. Holy shit how did this happen.

I am going to be a motherfucking WIFE! I must be honest the term wife doesn’t really throw up the sexiest of images. Wives make me think of old women in those wash dresses who wash linen down by the river and make sausages and candles out of bees-wax.

 

If you’re a wife are you still allowed to use the C word? And climb trees? And collect cool pebbles and twigs in the forest?

Do I have to start dressing more conservatively? Should I start wearing beige? Or sage? SAGE! I didn’t even know I knew that word! HELP ME!

Planning our wedding has been the single most awful experience of my life. I’ll write a separate piece on weddings another time but…fuck me that whole stuff is the most boring, sexist, conformist crap I’ve ever come across.

So yeah..I have the getting engaged stuff ticked off..what else is there? Oh right..I now have a dog and she lives in my house. I have a house. A plot of land with some bricks and a roof and it belongs to me. Well us. It belongs to us.

I have mixed feelings about the house. On the one hand, I feel extremely jovial that I have a thing that is mine. I can hang up pictures and paint walls and put down roots and just be.

On the other hand, I feel incredibly guilty because I know most people my age don’t have this. I kind of think I don’t deserve it because there are people out there who face real hardships. But then again, no one deserves anything. It’s just not how the universe works.

The house was a big adjustment. It was a real turning point. Because you can’t be an adult and have an adult house and not behave like an adult. Suddenly I had to learn about taxes, rates, solicitor fees, exchange rates, transfer duties, stamp duties…all that stuff. I’m only 9…how am I supposed to know all that?

Also, and this is the real bummer…this shit is expensive. Unaffordable really. I mean I legitimately didn’t know that you had to pay for water. I thought it was free.

The older you get, the more entwined you become in the adult world. It’s like a forest. Each branch, each sneaky twig represents an entrapment. A house, a better job, a new car, marriage, debt, kids…responsibilities. They’re reaching out to you and they look enticing. But really they’re trying to trap you.

The further you wander, the more lost you become. Until you realise you don’t like it here at all. And you want to go back. You want to go home. Back to safety; to your childhood. Where life was small and manageable. And where you weren’t afraid all the time.

I’m so far into this forest. And I’m so scared. When I was still driving a shit car and living in a 40 sq studio I could quit my job any day and become a waitress or go traveling or whatever.

Now I have a MORTGAGE!

From the bank! And you can’t pay those people in pictures. Well you can but not the kind I draw…they’re more after pictures with presidents on them.

 

 

 

Adulthood is just a facade. No one really knows what they’re doing. You think that just because people carry a briefcase and know about taxes and politics that they’re adults. But really, everyone is just pretending. We’re all just pretending. I have no idea what I’m doing. From the outside I look like a real adult. Like I have my shit together but actually, I don’t. I’m almost 30 but I still have to ask my parents for money when something happens to my car, or I gotta go to the dentist or worse the gynecologist. I said earlier that I’m only a 9-year-old child. Well that’s wrong. I’m actually a 29-year-old child.

As a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up. I really wanted to be an adult and finally be able to make all my own decisions. Now I’m like:

 

Sure, there are things now that I couldn’t do as a kid but they’re not as cool as I initially perceived.

1. Choose my own bedtime

*Actually, most nights that’s 9:30. I gotta be up early ’cause I have work in the morning 😦

 

2. Not Brush my Teeth!!

*Even though my mum doesn’t check if I brushed my teeth anymore, I still can’t NOT brush my teeth. Because society.

 

3. Buy as many sweets as I want

And they be like:

*Except as an adult I don’t really like sweets that much and also there is all this pressure to stay thin and be healthy and look good. I didn’t have any of that when I was a kid.

4. Drive

 

 

 

 

*Yes, I can drive now but I’m mainly driving to work which sucks. I saw myself driving to the beach with the top down, listening to O-town while smoking a pipe.

In conclusion, don’t grow up. Do what you want. Worry about it later.