Romantic comedies are one of my favourite types of movies, but I’ve started to realise how unrealistic their main characters are. They spend all this time falling in love, and of course, have spare time to exercise, cook ultra-healthy meals, work 50 hours a week for their big promotion, have budding social lives, travel…the list goes on and on.

IT’S A LIE.

I mean… the absolute worst thing that happens to people is quite literally aging.

I mean it is for some people. I am a part of that group. In my opinion, I think that adulting just quite literally sucks balls most of the time.

I know there are perks, and for a middle class, white woman I am extremely privileged. I have a roof over my head, a stable job and can afford to eat. I can do what I want, ultimately.

However, there’s just the issue of being an adult. And just because society has dubbed me the title of adult, does not mean I am being an adult.

We have to learn how to manage time and we all know that it is hard sometimes. We have to be able to go to work, do all our chores, socialize and still be able to get enough sleep, and it’s fucking harder than the rom coms suggest. At this point, I already accept procrastination as a friend that I have to follow until the end.

We have to do things by ourselves. We cannot, no matter how much we try, depend on our parents forever. We have to pay for everything, by ourselves. We have to learn how to cook, think about what to cook EVERY NIGHT, pay bills and clean the kitchen 59 times a day because quite literally making a piece of toast makes it look like a bomb has hit it.

I have been struggling so much with all of this lately, I have found it so overwhelming, all of a sudden. I just can’t keep up. About a month ago I went back to my parents for a night… I went home. I cried to my Mum and Dad about how hard I was finding adulting, about how I wish, I could go back, to not necessarily being a toddler or even a young child, but to being a young adult, a teenager. Being looked after and just being a bit more care free. It really devastated me, and for a night, I just wanted to be my parents child. 

Why is there just so much to do CONSTANTLY when you have to be independent?! It’s suffocating at times and the only thing you can do is move on, get used to it, and grab hold of the pleasures of being an adult. I know that in the end you just have to learn to do everything yourself and move on with your life. Life will never feel like easy leisure like it was when you were a kid, and it for sure will never feel like a rom com, but I suppose being an adult does mean that you can create your own little bubble, and decide what adulting looks like for you. And I have to just accept that it’s alright sometimes.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that I feel it’s okay to mourn being a teenager, being a child or just being young. Adulting is fucking hard mate. (I know that being a teenager at the moment involves way more pressure than it did when I was), but I still think it must be easier, right? And I guess thinking that is also ok?

I guess most of all, I just really wish I did not take watching Tracy Beaker every afternoon for granted.

Hang in there adult, we haven’t got this, but we haven’t got this, together.

Ellen on the Edge xx