No-Shame November

It's that time of year for me again! This was inspired for me two years ago by my friend Liz, who spent a whole month blogging about things that she was ashamed of. Then she wrote about those things (some were funny, some were serious) and shared her results. I don't have the humility nor the guts to do a whole month of posts that expose all of the things that make me feel guilty or ashamed, but I do like to devote one post in November to this cause. In a weird way, it's kind of fun. So it's not no-shave November for me (although for my boyfriend it is; his lumberjack beard has come along rather nicely) but no-shame November. And here we go with this year's post:

I'm ashamed that, going on two years into the process, this whole how-to-be-a-grown-up thing is still a mystery to me.

This post has come from many moments of hilarity, confusion, and even sometimes despair. Nobody told me what a crazy ride my life would be after graduating college. I think this is a problem unique to my generation. For my parents and their parents, you grew up because that's just what you did. You worked at the farm, foundry, or family business since you were 12 years old anyway, so working full time and making decisions weren't big steps for you. You were more worried about the life you were building instead of the image you were building. But we millennials are not like you guys.

But seriously though. 

We had the luxury of putting growing up on the back burner. We get to do things like summer mission trips, semesters abroad, and freshman years spent "finding ourselves." We date more people, get married later in life, buy more clothes, and go out to eat. We've had it good, and now we are paying for it. Sometimes it's a really funny moment, like this week, when I made myself the spongebob-shaped-mac-and-cheese and marveled at how much joy this simple thing brought to me. Sometimes it's a really depressing moment, when you realize that you are a "well-adjusted" and fully competent 24-year-old who still doesn't understand her own insurance package from work, even after her own father has explained it to you 14 different times with diagrams and visual displays to help.

Not only does the real world expect you to adjust to the exhaustion of a 50+ hours per week job, it also expects you to find that job in the first place, it expects you to cook dinner, find an apartment, find a church, manage your budget (woof), finish grad school, attend 48 weddings, and keep your place relatively presentable. And on top of all that? You, as a twentysomething, need to also do all of this while looking really cute and having a lot of fun and meeting a lot of new friends because obviously you're enjoying your twenties! 

I do think I had a particularly hard time with the adjustment from college to real-world, simply because of my ridiculous job. It's a good job, and an important one, one that I'm thankful for, but it is also definitely ridiculous. There are many days on my drive home where I look back and just laugh. Balancing the rest of my life against all that goes on in my daily life of teaching in East Garfield Park is definitely a challenge. And here's my question to the world: how do you other grown-ups decide how long to stay in your job? Or what other jobs to do? And how do you really know what you want to be when you grow up?

All of this pressure, of course, is imagined and unnecessary. Sometimes I kind of wish I was in a generation that just did everything that was expected of us. But in the end, I absolutely love this hot mess of a life that I lead. So here we go on the confessions:

I'm ashamed to admit that I have my mom on-call for my trips to the grocery store while I ask her to give me on-demand recipe ideas and pick up the ingredients as she lists them for me. After she explains how to make a simple meal twice over the phone, I go back and email her asking for written directions, only to call her again in the midst of cooking the meal to ask if I'm doing it wrong. This is a bimonthly occurrence. (When you see Kathy next, give her a high-five for her mad culinary skills. Then give her a hug for dealing with a daughter like me who did not inherit her natural knack in this area.)

I'm ashamed that one trip to Target can derail any best intentions at that week's budget.

I'm ashamed that instead of becoming moved to action, the needs of looking for jobs, finishing grad programs, paying insurance, registering my teaching license, making dinner, finishing laundry, and finding apartments actually just moves me to want to take a nap on the couch.

One day I will get it together.  But, at least for now, I have no shame in spongebob-shaped-mac-and-cheese.