Do you remember the first time you learned that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy weren't real? Or that Lindsay Lohan really didn't have a twin in Parent Trap? For a hot ten seconds, you thought the whole world was a lie. Are my parents truly my parents? Is the sky really blue?
Issa conspiracy.
Well, this same level of disbelief kicks in when you realize how difficult this phenomenon called "adulting" can be.
Picture this: It's 8:00 PM. You just got home from a long day of work, followed by 2 hours of fake smiling and small talking at the company networking reception. Traffic on the way home is surprisingly bad for so late at night. You get home and all you want to do is curl up in bed with a glass of wine and watch This Is Us, but you remember that you need to meal prep for lunch and dinner tomorrow. You then open the fridge to begin cooking and realize that your chicken isn't defrosted. Bet. Cereal it is. In the shower, thoughts about the bills you have to pay next week consume your mind.
What's a 401(k)? Who is the IRS and why do they need my money?
Am I actually a dependent?
If I say I am, do I get my money back?
Can I finesse and stay on my parents' health insurance until I'm 30?
Ugh, why is my rent due next week? Why does everything cost money?
The water goes cold. Great. You get out of the shower and suddenly it's 11:00 PM. How? Wraps hair. Climbs in bed. Lights off. Before you doze off, you remember that you have to do this all over again the next day, and the next day, and the next…
This, my friend, is adulting. This is the life we seemingly rushed through our final days of undergrad for. This is the beginning of our new forever. Woo!
All jokes aside, late fall typically marks the end of the adulting honeymoon period where we are forced to confront our misconceptions and regroup regarding our approach for this next stage of our lives. You're starting to see the same people at the club, your workload only seems to be growing larger, and the only consistent DMs you're getting in your inbox are from Sallie Mae.
Undergrad had its own playbook and by the time we graduated, most of us learned how to dominate the game. We were the stars of organizations, knew all the places to turn for help, had our community of friends on lock. And then, poof: we're starting all over. The rules aren't the same, we have a lot less free time, and we're learning more about our wants vs. needs.
For so long, my go-to depiction of adulting was Living Single: I was going to have this squad of fabulous girlfriends, go out on all these dates, have this amazing social life, and somehow still have time for myself. Well, now as a 20-something in that very same area of Brooklyn, I am pleased to report that I have a squad of fabulous girlfriends whom I rarely see because I work long hours, ain't nobody got time to be dating all the time, and my social life and desire for me-time often clash.
I have found that this tug-o-war, this requirement that you smell the roses and prioritize what truly matters to you, is a lot more representative of adulting than anything I saw on TV. And while so much of adulting is truly a lot of fun – the clean slate, the independence, the flexibility – there also a number of curveballs. How you adjust to the unexpected is up to you, but if done right, it can make all of the difference.
Here are 6 common struggles of adulting and tips on how to make the most of them:
Everything Costs Money
Bills, bills, bills, can you pay my telephone bills? Can you pay my automo-bills? If you did then maybe we could chill. Right now, if someone were to offer me 6 months of free groceries or free tickets to Coachella, I would pick the former with the quickness. No questions asked. I said what I said.
The beginning of the month is a constant dark cloud over our month because we know that we are going to have to pay our rent, electricity, gas, and wifi bills – maybe even cable – if you're bougie like that.
For recent grads, a good majority of our college expenses were in a vacuum. You likely paid a good chunk of your schooling through grants, scholarships, loans, and possibly parental assistance on a semester basis. There was a lot of stress around the beginning and end of each semester, but what was required from you was a lot more nuanced. Now, we're being asked to make decisions regarding health care plans and life insurance, when 6 months ago the highest level of financial planning we obtained was organizing an 8 person spring break trip to Cancun.
Tip: Get organized as quickly as you can regarding your mandatory expenses. Food, shelter, transportation, student loan repayment – the basics – should be prioritized from the jump in order to avoid hiccups. I create Google Calendar notifications for my bill due dates and set up automated payments to ensure timeliness. I also met with a financial planner to discuss my long-term strategy. After doing some basic budgeting, you will have a better sense regarding your flexible income and can pursue financial mentorship for more complicated concepts like 401(k) planning and saving for graduate school. You need to know what you're working with so there are no surprises.
The Same Routine Can Get Monotonous
Depending on your job and overall lifestyle, the day to day life of adulting can get old pretty quickly. Wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat will pretty much be the mantra of the next few decades, give or take a few vacations (depending on how many days you get off *cough cough*) and spontaneous sick days. That being said, it is important to spice up your life whenever your daily routine is getting too stale.
Tip: Grab your girls and go on a short weekend trip to a nearby city or visit a new cafe that has been catching your eye. Days and weeks can blur together, months passing at a time before you realize it, if left unchecked. You need to be very intentional about making time for yourself and experiences that will make you smile amidst the slow days. Reclaim your time.
Your First Job May Not Be Your Passion
Listen here, lean in close: It's okay not to love your first job – or first couple of jobs. Even jobs you love can stress you out when the hours are demanding and/or you depend on them to pay your bills. Upon connecting with a few of my friends to discuss our new lives, a common thread is the overall shock of working full-time and how drastically different or unfilling the work is compared to our original expectations.
Tip: First, remember that learning what you dislike from a career perspective is often as just as important as learning what you do like. Whether you decide to leave or stay, during your first few months/years into a new role, you are developing a set of transferable skills that will make you a stronger employee in your next job. So, don't quit as soon as your job isn't how you imagined. Work to maintain a strong reputation, give yourself time to truly assess your environment, and try to make the best out of your current situation, so leaving on good terms is actually an option.
Maintaining Old Friendships And Building New Ones Requires More Effort
We all knew it was coming, but moving away from all of our college friends and connecting with them less frequently is a definite down downside of adulting. While you'll certainly make new friends and FaceTime the old ones, you'll eventually have to come to terms with how little free time you have for a social life in general. Unless you work with your new friend group, meeting new people can be more challenging.
Tip: Be more thoughtful about the relationships you want to maintain and the kinds of people you want closest to you. Quality does not equal quantity and it's okay to accept that some friendships are just for a season.
But, as a general tip: Be intentional.
If having a solid group of friends is important to you, actually work to cultivate one. If keeping up with your old friends is important to you, make sure you check in every once in a while. Join book clubs, invite your neighbor over for a wine night, send your BFF a funny meme to check in on her. Going with the flow does not always pan out in a world where everyone is growing, stretching, and moving at the same time. If you care about something, make it known.
Dating in Your 20-Somethings Is A Mixed Bag
I have found dating in your 20-somethings to be like a box of chocolates. Some chocolates have pretty coating but taste disgusting, some bizarre chocolates taste surprisingly good, and sometimes, it's just better to stick with what you know. All in all, there are a number of options, you don't always know what you're getting, and you can't eat all the chocolates at once, but the temptation is there.
When I first thought about moving back to NYC, the promise of an active dating life was certainly a plus. Especially, after living in Utah for a few months. While dating is definitely an option, I quickly learned that first dates get old pretty quickly and there is such a range of experience and expectations in one age demographic. Some people are already 7 years deep into their careers and want to lock it down immediately, while some barely know where their next paycheck is coming from. Guys who I originally saw myself with ultimately did not fit the bill and taking the time to truly get to know new people while balancing busy work schedules and the occasional existential crisis can grow to be too much. As annoying as dating in college was, I found it to be a lot simpler.
Tip: Despite the cliche, some of the greatest tidbits of dating advice that I've received about dating in our 20's is the importance of spending time working on ourselves, understanding what we truly want, not being afraid to communicate, and asking people to step up or to step away. There is so much pressure to compare ourselves to those around us, especially in the age of social media, and there is this incessant pressure to have all the answers. In reality, most of our peers are just as lost as we are. The harsh reality is that we'll just have to kiss a couple frogs – or keep trying different chocolates – until we figure out what truly works and who makes us the happiest. Our 20's are for growth.
There's no turning back
If only we could just decide not to adult for a few months. Just temporarily freeze the impending bills and demands and simply exist. Wouldn't that be nice?
Tip: Well girl, this ship has sailed. Bon voyage. There's no turning back. There will be ups and downs, tears and celebrations, and moments where you question it all. But, after you get ahold of your schedule, finances, and figure out who and what brings you joy in this new chapter, adulting really isn't half bad.
What are some of your adulting struggles and strategies? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image by Shutterstock
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and Skylar
Cj Hart @hartbreak
Today, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak
