Patience is a virtue, but a finite one.

One day my filter will fail and I will not be able stop myself from asking another full-grown adult, likely a coworker, “How the FUCK do you not fall down more often?”

This is a perfectly logical life plan.

I have this habit of intending to respond to OkCupid messages, but then I forget about it, or I want to wait until I’m at a computer instead of my phone, and then suddenly a week has passed and I think, “Well, if I really wanted to reply, I would’ve made it more of a priority,” so I just delete the message.

When I told my therapist about this, she said, “Hey, maybe don’t do that? You saved those messages for a reason. Either write back or delete them, but letting them sit in your inbox makes them just another to-do item looming in your brain, making you feel like you’re behind on life and bad at being an adult.”

So, um… Can y’all write these dudes back?

Apparently I have hella issues and emotional walls and I think I’m boring so I don’t want to waste anyone’s time? I didn’t know these things about myself — never go to therapy. “I would’ve made it more of priority” sounds far less tragic, like I’m just such a busy, baller boss bitch that I don’t have time for you people and your penises.

But hey, you know what? Frankly I’m doing these men a favor. If I never answer, they’ll never get any of my Crazy on them, and then no one gets hurt. I’ll just continue hiding in my little Singleton cave and never getting laid and letting these feelings deepen and fester until I’m a crazy, old cat lady who dies alone and the cats eat my face. What’s the problem? The cats will be fed!

(Ahem. Why, yes, it has occurred to me that perhaps I should be in therapy twice a week.)

“Ugh! What is your childhood trauma?!”

So I went to therapy, and we ended up talking about childhood, which, no matter how, “I’m an adult, I’m not dealing with childhood” I am, apparently childhood can fuck up your shit and stunt your development and make you a goddamn weirdo as an adult, so now we have to talk about it and I almost cried twice and FUCK crying, crying is for teenagers and women who watch Lifetime and also fuck fuck fuck don’t wanna don’t wanna don’t wanna.

*pant* *pant* *pant*

Ahem. WHAT stunted development…?

All the women, who independent, throw your hands up in frustration…

So, I haven’t mentioned that I’m moving again, probably in about 2 weeks. The rent in my generic, cookie-cutter apartment complex is going up to an amount that’s basically a mortgage. I COULD pay it, but decided to go see what else I could get for that amount or less.

Turns out, I can get the same amount of space but WAY cuter, a more walkable neighborhood, better food options, and closer to everyone I love, for about $400 less a month.

I made lists. I did math. I considered all my life factors and made a grownup decision. When I talked to my therapist, she told me it sounds like the perfect choice for everything I’ve said is important to me, including my budget and mental health.

NO one in my family is happy for me. Everyone got some shit to say.

Today my grandfather offered to let me move in with him, basically rent free, saying my new rent is “still a lot of money,” and my dad chimed in and said, “Yeah, can you imagine putting that amount in the bank every month? After 5 years you’d have, what, $60,000?”

Um…$60,000 for WHAT, exactly? My retirement to an institution because I haven’t had sex in 5 years and have gone insane living with a 90-year-old man who watches home shopping at full volume all day and lectures me about my sodium intake?

It’s a VERY sweet offer, honestly. I’m incredibly grateful. If I am ever in any form of dire life straits, obviously this would be a lifesaver. (Speaking of which, I’m not a total asshole — Granddad doesn’t need live-in help; his health is probably better than mine.)

But I know my family, and this is a goddamn trap. I love my grandfather, but dude IS the patriarchy. I’ve lived alone for 5 years, sir, sometimes unemployed, and the beauty of that particular soul crush is, you learn to fucking handle your bid-ness. I don’t know what kind of helpless, broke-ass princess they think they’ve raised, but I ain’t havin’ it.

I am going to live alone, and walk around naked, and stay up too late, and binge watch My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on weekends, and hopefully have noisy, raucous sex followed by salt-laden Indian takeout at the first available opportunity.

NOW. If you’ll please excuse me, I gotta go throw my hands up at Destiny’s Child.

Like an ADULT. No, really.

A friend pointed out that I’m kind of shitty to myself when it comes to my ability to be an adult: “You are constantly talking about being incapable, an unfit adult, generally sucking at everything, along with other negative talk about yourself.”

Hm. That’s because I genuinely do FEEL incompetent probably half of the time, like I can’t even believe I’m allowed to drive and make life choices. But I think the difference is, unlike everyone else, I say it out loud. And probably too often.

A Facebook friend who doesn’t know me very well went so far as to imply it was my “thing,” and a coworker sent me a JPG of an “adulting honorable mention” ribbon that said “I put on pants today.”

I really don’t want ineptitude to be my “thing.” Especially at work.

We’ll add that to the list of goals to work on with the therapist, because I’m really not sure how to go about fixing it. (Other than to just shut the fuck up, which I guess is probably the best option.) But I can’t get butthurt when people treat me like an incompetent asshole if I continue to act like one.

But ssshhhh… I’m totally going to go eat Froot Loops in my blanket fort. And the pants will be gone as soon as I walk in the door.

In honor of Hump Day…

Friend: “I’m reading an essay on Britney Spears (don’t you judge me) and I don’t think I’d ever seen the cover to ‘Oops, I Did It Again.’ She’s got a cameltoe about four blocks long.” 

Me: “I’d never seen it, either, but Jesus Christ, I just Googled it. You’re not wrong. Those lips are more prominent than the ones on her face.”

Friend: “I feel I may have done myself a disservice by not delving deeper (heh) into her oeuvre (heh).”

Me: “I can’t believe we’re adults.”

Upon further reflection, I think an underappreciated benchmark of adulthood may be working the word “oeuvre” into a cameltoe joke. That’s craft, right there.

Fun with regression

Surprising no one, I’ve once again made a giant mess of dating and adulthood. That’s it, I quit. I’ll be in my blanket fort eating Kraft mac & cheese. Boys are stupid and they have cooties. (Alternately, I’m an asshole.)