The twenty-something condition. It all seems to come back to that—as much as we enjoy blogging about anything and everything here, the posts that resonate with me the most, and the real inspiration behind this blog, are the questions about growing up. The transition from kid to college student to young professional to…true adulthood somewhere along the way. It’s a lot of fun to look back at old posts and see how my (and our) perspectives have already changed in the last few years. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing an even greater sense of adulthood in my life. Not to say that the carefree pursuits of my early twenties are gone forever, but it certainly seems that a shift has taken place, and I’m not precisely sure how or when that happened.
A lot of it has to do with just what occupies my time, energy, and mind. These days, the biggest questions I’m pondering are ones like,
When is the right time to start a family?
How will I balance a career and motherhood?
Should I try to get a better job or be happy with where I am?
How can I save and invest our money responsibly so we are prepared for the future?
How do we stay healthy as our bodies and metabolisms start to change?
These are heavy questions, adult quandaries that have no easy answers, though I’m slowly making the effort to try and figure them out. We met with a financial planner this summer, though in truth that resulted in more questions than answers. I’ve been trying to learn from my friends and acquaintances who are already moms, though it troubles me that none of them have seemed to find what I would consider the ideal balance between work and home life. Maybe ideal doesn’t exist?
I try to improve myself as a teacher, but it’s too easy for the demands of the day-to-day to eclipse long-term learning and growth. Part of me looks forward to the day when I can quit my job and stay home with my kids. Another part of me is afraid to leave my job for fear I’ll never return.
Three years ago we were just happy to have “real jobs” and be making money. The biggest questions we faced were things like,
What should I make for dinner tonight?
And,
Where should we go on our next vacation?
I know I’ve grown a lot since then, and I still have more growing to do. I oscillate between thinking I’ve done pretty well for myself and seeing my inadequacies all too clearly. My husband turns 28 this month, and 27 is just around the corner for me, so I suppose it’s natural that we’ve become adults somewhere in the last few years of twenty-something madness. I feel like one, but simultaneously I sometimes want to push all those mature questions from my mind and just plan another fun vacation or binge on chick flicks from 2004 (that was last week, actually).
What about you? How have you become more of an adult since we started this blog?
I love this post, sorry it’s taken me so long to comment. I think I loved it so much I’ve been hesitant to say something until I felt ready. But like adulthood, maybe I’ll never really feel ready.
Those questions are the ones on my mind lately too, and I agree that there may never be a perfect answer. Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing nearly enough and other times I feel way ahead of the curve. I still feel very 20something, torn between laying the groundwork for my future and enjoying the freedom of my youth. I’ve definitely changed since we started this blog, but not anywhere near as much as I expected to.
It goes back and forth between the two extremes for sure. Somedays I feel super silly and like I’ll never really be a “grown up”. Other days I feel the weight of adulthood clinging to my shoulders. I keep wondering at what point I’ll make a permanent shift and stop thinking of myself vacillating between the two. But then I think, I’m not sure I ever will stop thinking that I’m not quite an adult. There always seems to be someone ‘more adult’ with more responsibilities and important decisions to make.