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How many times have you heard?
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Don't worry.
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It'll all make sense when you grow up.
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Yeah, about that.
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I grew up and nothing
still makes any sense.
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Our whole lives we're told how to
live, what milestones are important.
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and if our life didn't look
like that, well then clearly
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we messed up, except we didn't.
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You lived it the best way that you could
with the map that you had, even if that
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map was a crayon drawing on a napkin.
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Which, let's be real.
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It's probably still in your junk
drawer somewhere next to a dead
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Fitbit and three Rogue AA batteries.
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You didn't fail.
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You didn't fall behind some
magical life timeline that
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you never actually agreed to.
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There's still this little whisper
that sometimes creeps in with me,
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a little voice that just says that
if I just worked harder or planned
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better or made fewer mistakes, that
maybe my life would've been easier.
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But looking back now, I really
don't think that it would have.
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I don't think that it was
ever about getting it right.
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It was about getting it done -badly,
beautifully stubbornly, and making a life
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out of whatever cards that were dealt.
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It's about getting through the mess,
making the memories, and finding
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pieces of yourself along the way.
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No matter where you are on your life's
journey, maybe it's time that you stop
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beating yourself up for not living
a fantasy that was never real and
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actually start living the life that is.
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It's crazy, but it just might work.
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There was a trap built into all this
where survival felt like failure.
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So there's one thing that you need
to hear because it could change
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everything about how you see yourself.
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There was this idea that your twenties
were supposed to set you up for life.
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They didn't just sell us a dream.
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They practically handed us a
blueprint we were supposed to
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follow like idiots on a scavenger
hunt for a life that didn't exist.
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Your twenties are sold
as a launchpad, right?
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A launch pad to what?
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I don't know.
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Crippling debt.
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A single digit credit score.
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Figure it out early, set yourself up
for success, coast into stability.
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Yeah.
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My twenties were not a launchpad.
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They were a crash course in surviving
off old coffee bounced checks, and
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one roommate who never bought toilet
paper but always seemed to have weed.
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You know, for a generation that
thought Mad Dog 2020 was a solid life
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choice, it's a damn miracle any of
us made out of our twenties alive.
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It feels like a cosmic joke that we
were expected to figure out life while
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thinking Boone's Farm and Bartles
and James were counted as fine wine.
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We weren't building empires, people,
we were trying to survive Tuesdays.
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I had a futon in my apartment that
doubled as a couch and my bed.
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And honestly, I thought
I was crushing adulthood.
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I was, I was damn near an interior
decorator, dumpster chic, broke addition.
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Somewhere in there I managed to
torch my credit so bad it should have
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been declared a natural disaster.
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Find your passion.
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Start saving early.
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Fall in love.
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Buy a house.
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Climb the ladder.
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Have two kids and a golden retriever
named Scout before your 30th birthday.
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That's the script that they gave us.
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Now it sounds reasonable when you
hear it at a graduation speech or
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if you say it really, really fast.
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Meanwhile, I'm just trying to figure
out if eating ramen for breakfast
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is a cry for help or a life hack.
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Sometimes I like to add soy sauce and
pretend I was a chef life hack indeed.
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Honestly, if you ever need someone to
co-sign your life hacks, that's basically
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what half my one-on-ones are for.
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I'm here for you.
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No judgment.
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Just vibes, and my
questionable brilliance.
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You aren't thriving during this phase.
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You're surviving.
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But nobody told us that
survival is a kind of success.
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Let me tell you, you are following a
broken map that never led anywhere.
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All the while feeling like
you're failing, but you weren't.
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So let's talk about that.
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So next, your thirties hit right,
and your problems get slightly.
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Classier.
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Your thirties are supposed to be when
you settle down, right when you have a
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career, the family, the savings, the plan.
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This is where I really
started feeling behind.
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I didn't see anything
wrong with the system.
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I only saw things wrong with myself.
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It was me.
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It was all about me.
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I was stupid and I was
obviously the problem.
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I had missed the adulting seminar
where they explained how not to screw
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up your life before you turn 35.
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Instead of bouncing checks at Taco
Bell, now I'm on the phone at 9:00 AM
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arguing with an insurance company about
whether or not getting a strep throat
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culture counts as an elective procedure.
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Same chaos, just in business casual.
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I really thought that by 30 I'd have it
figured out, but instead I just became
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excellent and pretending I understood the
difference between a 401k and a Roth IRA.
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I still don't really
understand the difference.
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All I really wanted was a real job,
a porch with a $9 plastic chair from
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Kmart, and a savings account that
didn't send me hate mail every month.
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What's the one thing that you pretended
to understand about adulthood?
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Way before you actually did,
or maybe you still don't.
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No judgment here.
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Come on.
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Spill it.
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Spill it.
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Your thirties carry more responsibilities,
but nobody handed you a manual.
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You're managing more pressure, but
nobody handed you more hours in the day.
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And somewhere deep down,
there's still that little voice.
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You should be farther along by now.
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The great secret of adulthood
is that everyone's improvising.
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The ones who look polished, are just
better at hiding the existential
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dread under good lighting.
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Now, I had a good job.
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I was building a career.
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I'd already racked up my first
divorce, and deep down, I still didn't
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believe that I had a real future.
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But hey, shout out to the mental
health issues for that little pep talk.
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Nothing says thriving like crying
in the work bathroom and pretending
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that you just have allergies.
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Good times, good times.
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I didn't feel any more
grown up than I had at 25.
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I just felt like I was supposed to be.
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I was cosplaying adulthood- badly.
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And just when you think you've
outgrown the chaos, you find out
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the game just leveled up and the
instructions are still freaking missing.
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Your forties hit and things finally
start to look solid, from the outside.
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You have the career, maybe the mortgage,
maybe a few polished vacation photos
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where nobody can see the credit
card debt hiding behind your smiles.
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For me, I did finally start looking
like I knew what I was doing.
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It finally started to feel like
maybe just maybe I was doing
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this adulting thing, right.
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I still thought at this point that
I'd really feel different, right?
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I thought I'd feel wiser,
more solid, less terrified.
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By 40 I thought I'd be
sipping Earl Tea and casually
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discussing my stocks at brunch.
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Instead, I just got better at
pretending panic was ambition.
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You're proud though, because
you built something, right?
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You are building something.
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You fought for it.
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You earned it.
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But the truth is you're still
that same person who's just
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trying to hold it all together.
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The one that's still wondering, is this
it or am I just in another waiting room
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where nothing is ever really gonna happen?
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You drink the Kool-Aid because it served
with a paycheck and a benefits package.
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Nobody tells you that even when you
make it, you can still feel like you're
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about 2 missed paychecks away from
watching the whole thing collapse.
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You didn't miss a step though.
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You didn't mess it up.
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You were living a story that
nobody prepared you for, and it's
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time you finally heard the truth.
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Nobody wins adulthood.
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There's no diploma, no parade.
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Ed McMahon doesn't show up on
your doorstep with a gold balloon
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that says, congratulations.
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You are now officially done being
confused and exhausted.. What really
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happens is that you just keep going.
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You keep showing up
whether you want to or not.
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You build a life one decision at a time.
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Even when you're broke,
tired and terrified.
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You survive endless tuesdays, you
survive bosses who don't know your
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name, you survive breakups, breakdowns,
bad roommates, bad haircuts, and car
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repairs that you can't really afford.
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And every time you think
that's it, that's it.
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I'm tapping out now.
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Somehow the next day you show
up again for another round.
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It's not polished, it's not pretty,
but it's real and it's yours.
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The goal was never to lock it
all down by 30 or 40 or ever.
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The real goal is to realize
that you were never the problem.
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You weren't failing.
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You were living.
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You were becoming every bad
date, every bad boss, every
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bad roommate, every overdraft.
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It wasn't proof you were screwing up.
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It was proof you were surviving
something that nobody trained you for.
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You weren't supposed to save $200
a month when you were making 4
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25 an hour and hoping your tires
would survive one more winter.
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You weren't supposed to have a
five year plan when you didn't even
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have five clean pairs of socks.
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You weren't supposed to arrive at
some polished version of success.
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You were supposed to build it wrong,
fix it badly, tear it down, rebuild it
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sideways, and occasionally sit on the
floor eating cereal straight from the box.
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That's not failure.
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Turns out you didn't miss
some secret deadline.
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You crossed the finish line without
even knowing that you were in the race.
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Now let's talk about what that means.
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So welcome to level 50, same chaos,
slightly better snacks, and a free
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gift bag that includes half used
Yankee candles, and a reminder that you
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still don't know how to do your taxes.
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Yankee Candle scents include broken
dreams in linen and financial
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insecurity with a hint of pine.
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If you're wondering why you still don't
feel like you have it all together,
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congratulations, you're an adult.
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You graduated a long time ago
you just didn't get the memo.
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And if nobody told you before,
let me be the one to say it now.
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You're doing it right.
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Every bit of it, even if it hurts, even
if you're barely scraping by, even if
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you feel weird or lost or broken or dumb.
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You didn't miss your moment.
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You're not late, you're not
broken, you're not failing.
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You adapted.
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You figured out how to keep going
when the rule book made no sense.
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You made something outta
nothing again, and again.
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You're just living a real messy,
complicated life that doesn't
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fit neatly on a checklist and it
never will because it's yours.
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And once you realize it's your life
not theirs, you can't unsee how much
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of it was rigged from the start.
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Yeah, we're gonna rip that bandage off
right here because if you are anything
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like me, once you stop blaming yourself,
you start asking the harder questions.
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Questions that don't have neat
answers, questions that might wreck
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everything you thought that you knew
about what life was supposed to be.
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Check it out here and I'll see you there.
