Adulting
Guess what? I don't know what I'm doing with my life!
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It’s been a while.
I’ve written half-things and I’ve tried to schedule days to put pen to paper more times than I can count and I’ve certainly thought about ideas enough that something, anything really, should have been typed up and published by now.
In truth, I haven’t been writing because I’ve been living, and it’s because I’ve been living that I now feel like I finally have something to say.
When was the last time you did something stupid?
In a moment of growth since writing this post, I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that no one knows what the fuck they’re doing.1 I’ve also been watching the comedy series Adults (2025), which has only served to solidify this fact further into my subconscious.
I’ve had a great time watching this show. Every single character is a Hot Mess, but that’s exactly the point. They’re in their twenties and thirties, this is what life is supposed to be like. You’re meant to sleep with people who are wrong for you, and party so hard you end up in the hospital once in a while for non-life-threatening injuries. You’re supposed to spend your entire months’ salary on something ridiculous, and get high with people you’ll never see again.
I rarely allow myself to do dumb things. Ever since I can remember I’ve always been the responsible one, the dependable one, everyone’s rock. Perpetually a designated driver.2 I always seem to make the wise choice, and resent others for getting themselves into situations I’m secretly envious of.
My best friend came to visit me last week. She’s also mature, good, dependable. We sat in the meadows of West London and made a case for doing stupid things in small increments. It’s healthy perhaps, maybe even necessary. I’ve been doing a lot of stupid shit since the clock struck midnight on the first of January.
I’ve been to dinner with six complete strangers in a brand new neighbourhood. I’ve ignored the voice in my head that told me to run for the hills. Thirty minutes before turning twenty-eight I smoked my first cigarette and didn’t completely hate it. Heartbroken on the streets of Amsterdam I thought that I might want to pack up my entire life again, move somewhere new, start over.
I’m free to press the reset button as many times as I want, right? Why have I been waiting for someone to give me permission to experiment with my life?
I think there is a lot to be said about how the Covid-19 pandemic has made us all risk-averse. We are cautious with our paycheques, with our careers, with our hearts. We save money because we might need a lot of it when the world ends and we stay in jobs we don’t like because we’re scared of instability and we’re stuck in a cycle of never committing to anyone because we can always swipe right and find someone better.
In Nepal earlier this year, I had the honour of spending an afternoon with the seventy-year-old owners of Junbesi Homestay, a beautiful cottage overlooking the Himalayas. Before our departure, they told us what we were doing on our trekking trip, as risky and lengthy as it may be, was all going to be a beautiful piece in the larger puzzle of our good, long lives.
Feeling fundamentally changed by what they said, I stood in their kitchen and cried a little. For as long as I live I don’t think their words will ever leave me. When I’m their age, I want to look back at my life and know that I made mistakes but that I also lived well. I don’t want to look back at my life and say that I was always so good at avoiding risk.
What I hope you take away from this post, and from Adults if you choose to watch it, is that life has only ever felt like it was happening to me once I made the decision to be brave and take a risk, big or small. Enter that competition, find a job in a city you’ve never set foot in, put an end to a toxic relationship, kiss lots of people who might break your heart.
I’ve been experimenting a lot with my life lately. I’d like you to do the same. Afterwards, please tell me all about the beautiful places you ended up seeing and the wonderful people you met along the way. I’ll be waiting.
So here’s what you missed on Glee: Angana realises something extremely obvious a little bit too late.
And I don’t even know how to drive!