AWOL from Adulthood

It is almost cliché, nowadays, for a 20-something unemployed college student to complain about "adulting" and the joke is so tired that it stopped being funny years ago.

So this isn't a comical post how I graduated knowing that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell while still being severely confused by taxes... though it is and I am.

This post isn't that because being confused by taxes is not our fault nor its it our school's or college's fault. Its Congress' and the IRS' fault. Them and the bribes they get from places like TurboTax to keep taxes impossibly difficult and complicated. And come to think of it, how many of you actually know what a mitochondria is beyond being the "powerhouse of the cell"? For the record, it is a component of a cell (known as an organelle) that through biochemical reactions turns nutrients into a molecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), that the cell uses as energy (and to all the biologists or AP Bio students reading this who are probably fuming about how simplified or technically wrong that is, all I have to say to them is: I my degree is in rocky rocks and dirty dirt).

Instead I want to reflect on something else, an issue the predates my graduation but has certainly gotten worse since coming home.

I think a lot of people in my life might describe me as ambitious or committed to my values, ideals, or work but if you looked at my life more closely (especially the last two months), I think they would see that I have in many ways been AWOL from adulthood.

As I sit here writing for this blog (a project I started by myself because it brings me joy and clarity a few months ago to then promptly drop) I still need finish: a simple (if even though somewhat tedious) research task on a topic I am super passionate about, make an optometrist, dentist, and therapist appointment, finish like ten job/internship applications, apologize for missing multiple meetings, finish six more blog posts I started to then walk away from, get my REAL ID, get a new debit card and finally get a credit card, start practicing music for a new ensemble I joined and am very excited about, get myself back into the shape, finish up one last damn lab class for my undergrad, finish unpacking and cleaning my room, write a brief biography of myself for a contract gig I have with a great community group I am working with, start figuring out where the hell I am going to live, and schedule a damn haircut. These are all fairly simple things and nearly all are things I have done before but here I am debilitatingly paralyzed in anxiety about them.

I am not someone who has an innate fear of phone calls or public speaking and I am someone who is in many ways actually very excited about a lot these projects I am getting to work on. So what is the hold up?

Clearly if I had an answer I would not be in these situation. I am posting this publicly because I know that I tend be better at getting things done when I feel like someone other than just me is relying on me to get them done (I also know that's not necessarily healthy). But in that above list there very clearly are things that other people are already relying on me to get done so a lack of accountability or pressure that I can't be the only thing getting in my way.

I also often complain about feeling unstructured and how much I struggle to hold myself accountable to a schedule. Since graduating (and because I am unemployed) I have had almost no structure or schedule. But even during college, when my life was highly regimented and scheduled... I would hit a a day or a few days or even a week where I just lost all energy to do anything and my regimented life would crumble apart.

Still, I am avoiding saying I am "unmotivated" because I am not sure that actually describes what I am feeling. I have a lot motivators, a lot of passion, and a lot of ideas and reasons to want to get these tasks done. I am ambitious. I want to work professionally in changing that damn world, I might want to be an elected one day. And all grandiose thinking doesn't even scare me, it invigorates and energizes and excites me.

But then I think about simply calling the dentist and boom pang of anxiety. I think about opening my lab excel sheets for class and boom heart racing. I think about actually applying for these jobs or getting my haircut or sitting down to write or finishing my research project or even just simply attending a fucking zoom meeting and BOOM my muscles tense, my airway constricts, and suddenly the notion of getting my body to do anything beyond laying in bed is laughable.

I have for years struggled with anxious moments and depressive episodes... and honestly I think that might just be par for the course for a generation of young folx who were born into a world at that is perpetually at war, perpetually on fire, and perpetually blaming you for the fuck ups of those decades older than you. But even then I don't think I can blame the world for this one.

Climate change terrifies me, the disillusion of democratic institutions pisses me off, and the economy being more exploitive and polarized today than it was when children were still used in factories because their small hands fit in the machines better depresses me. But those aren't what am I thinking about or feeling when I try to do these often simple tasks.

This problem is obviously personal and here I am posting publicly about it but I think it is also a relatable problem. I think this anxious paralysis knows no age and is experienced by far more people than conversations might let on. So I guess I am posting this to say, hey... me too?

Again, I don't know if that helps to know others struggle too and there sadly is not some powerful and sweeping call to action at the end of this post that will fix these genuine quality of life questions. But I also personally have never really put words to what I have been feeling, and just doing that has made me feel a little better.

So this isn't me suddenly committing to a 180 and forcing myself into a strict regiment (I have tried and failed at that so many times). I am not suddenly promising one post a day or setting a hard deadline for the intimidating to do list, instead I am just going to start trying.

Which feels weird to say because it suggests I wasn't trying before, and I promise I was... or at least I thought I was. But now I think I am going to try differently?

I was more productive today than I have been in weeks. I managed to do it while I was (and likely because I was) sitting in a coffee shop. I think environments matter, I think doing things that make you feel good WHILE doing the things which stress you out matters, and I think acknowledging when things have gone to far matters too,

I have been absent without leave from adulting for much too long... maybe for as long as I have technically been an adult. And while it would be way too much pressure and honesty foolhardy to suggest that I make my way back to basecamp tomorrow, I guess I gotta start heading back at some point so this post is my first attempt to find my way back.

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Tonight's selection pairs best with a glass of water, because you probably haven't drank enough of it today.

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Picture: https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Mitochondria-by-Davis6024/30456521.EJUG5

Sources: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free