woman carrying toddler on her back while planting

We live our day-to-day lives, walk down our respective streets doing whatever, lock eyes with beautiful strangers, and appear to be normal; meanwhile, the majority of time, our minds are screaming fuuuuuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I dare you to shout it at the top of your lungs, I just did. Did I feel silly for a moment there? Yes, certainly! Did I focus on that? Fuck no, I just needed to fucking get it out of my system. All the tension, anxiety, and worries; I don’t know what it is about it, but fuck, that felt cathartic, and I feel lighter as I write this. 

I remember when I couldn’t wait to become an adult because, for me, that meant being able to find my freedom, especially from being bossed around by the adults around me at the time. I marveled at the fact that there’s a space in time where I’d get to be who I want, do what I want, and with whom I want; only to get here and realize that it’s quite miserable at times. The freedom I so longed for is there, no doubt about it, but there’s a pile of shit that comes with it, all wrapped in one with a ribbon on it, and there’s no picking one without the other.  

What does freedom look like to you? Mark Manson in his book ‘The Art Of Not Giving A Fuck’ says that, “absolute freedom, by itself means nothing.” That, “ the only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief, or (gulp) one person.” I have been navigating this clusterfuck that is my adulthood for quite a while now, and that sucks to admit because, how the hell have I been an adult for almost 10 years now? I thought that becoming an adult meant having an inbuilt step-by-step guide on how to live life. I know that sounds dumb, but when I was young every adult seemed to know what the hell they were doing, like they were equipped with some sort of universal life manual that kept propelling them forward. What a fucking maze! I got here and caught on quickly to the very disappointing fact that we’re all just grasping at straws; the best bet is a consistent attempt to be better at anything. 

I felt so cheated, especially when my view of life started to shift to becoming my own. My world as I knew it came crushing down so I could allow myself to find my faith, discover myself, and create meaning around my life. This right here is what makes the adulthood clusterfuck worth living; numbing everyone else’s concept of how to best live life, and finding what works for you. Sure, aligning with the best possible version of yourself(whatever that looks like to you) is a pain in the ass process, but does it not feel good each time you try?