Cashing Out

List of things I never thought I'd do as an adult:

• become a vegan.
• sue someone.
• worry about my reproductive health.
• have reproductive health complications.
• use an eyelash curler.
• fart in front of my husband.
• worry about being downsized.
• yell at a stranger in a grocery store.
• break up with my mother.
• consider moving out of the Midwest.
• move in with a man before I married him.
• consider watching porn.
• want not to have children.
• get a tattoo.

I realize I've been saying this a lot: "I never thought this would be a part of my life as an adult." I don't know how old I was when I fantasized about being a grown-up: maybe seventeen. Seventeen was a good year. I was driving, I was a senior in high school, I met my first love--which meant I finally had a date to Homecoming and Prom that hadn't been scared up by my girlfriends who wanted me to join them and their dates--I was doing well in school and participating in all my favorite extra-curriculars; life was great.

Right now, life does not feel great. I feel without roots; I feel confused. I feel like things are changing around me too fast to tolerate them, and I don't feel like I have the skills to adapt, or like I know how to. I want to cry, to throw something, to blame everyone else for how badly I feel. I want help.

I want my money back. If I'd known this is what it meant to be an adult, I might have cashed out a long time ago.