As Virginia Woolf once said, ‘growing up is losing some illusions in order to acquire others’. You may no longer believe in Santa (or you may, each to their own), but you can somehow make yourself believe that those letters marked ‘urgent’ about your student loan repayments are not even there.
Transitioning from student who eats pasta straight out of the saucepan to a real-life, fully fledged adult can be a difficult and tricky time, but often the evolution can happen without you even thinking about it. You slowly develop full financial independence from your parents one pay day at a time and the frequency of the ‘so have you met anyone yet’ comments increase to such a crescendo that you have become an expert at deflecting it.
It’s the little things that catch you out, the everyday normalities and opinions that have you in awe at the realisation that it sounds like something your mum would say. You also genuinely feel that 2007 was only about three years ago. You buy things like brown rice and avocado in Tesco rather than filling your cart with ready meals and Doritos.
There are people around you (mostly on Facebook) who are getting engaged and having babies and you still can’t commit to a phone contract or keep a plant alive but this is totally normal, you just keep doing you and one day that cactus will surpass a life expectancy of one month.
You give out about kids these days and move out of sync with the constant churn out of chart music. I do not know who Shawn Mendes is but his combined social media following of 19 million teenagers hints to me that he might be kind of a big deal.
The annual budget and elections suddenly become an actual interest to you as you realise that they legitimately have an impact on your life.
Hangovers start to last two days and how you will feel on a Sunday morning becomes the decision maker for how you will spend your Friday and Saturday nights. Bed at 9pm is a blessing rather than a punishment and you genuinely feel bad for how much you opposed to afternoon naps as a child, they are now a rarity.
You start to wonder why you spent all of that time in secondary school trying to act like you were really cool and look back on old photos and cringe at vintage you. As an adult you no longer care what people think of how you live your life but you still upload humble-brag pictures to Instagram and Facebook because in reality that’s what those platforms are for.
Being an adult doesn’t always necessarily mean you are ready for long term commitment or mortgages, it’s about being able to make the best decisions for you to live your too it’s best potential and maybe even winning an argument with your parents from time to time.
Sarah Magliocco
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