The Confessions of a Lady-Child

So, okay, look: I’m a middle-millennial, of an age that I've had plenty of years to accumulate an arsenal of cringe-fuel. I have battle scars in the form of fine lines to prove that every single medal of shame was earned, thank you very much. My early-twenties alone were a warzone of booze-soaked moments that I hid under my pillow about for days afterward until the next one occurred.

Bah.

I could easily talk about the time I accidentally flashed my tits to a crowded Ben & Jerry’s on Free Cone Day (I’ve never been able to confidently wear a strapless anything since), or the time I assumed my buddy would hook me up with free pizza because his dad owned the best pizza place in my city (I felt so ashamed that I dogged him the following day with the money for the slice).

How about the time I broke my ankle at a strip club? That was intense. A friend of mine, with help from the doorman, had to carry my drunk ass up the stairs and to a taxi while I vodka-wept all over them. Or, and I’m already turtling my head into my body at the recollection, the morning I proved I had no dignity left and knocked on all of my friend’s neighbors’ doors looking for someone to give me a cigarette after she and I spent an entire night polishing off a few too many bottles of wine. (Why she didn’t wrestle me to the floor and pin me there, I have no idea, but there you have it.)

Perhaps I can interest you in an embarrassing anecdote from my childhood: the day the carpool dropped me off at home. I spent the ride squished against my crush in the back seat. After climbing out of the van, I twirled and sprawled on my front lawn, swooning as one young and in love does. I thought the van had already pulled away, but, nay nay, it hadn’t, and the pleated skirt I was wearing had fallen the very wrong way, exposing my underwear to the world and, you guessed it, to my crush. Needless to say, I was mortified.

I could talk about all of it in gruesome detail, but what, exactly, would be the point? The above makes me want to headdesk repeatedly until I’ve given myself a lobotomy with a splinter, sure, but it wouldn’t serve any sort of purpose, would it?

As I write this, I realize I’m at a place in my life where none of it means anything anymore. Like, seriously, no one involved in any of those situations remembers any of it, too distracted by their own lives to bother reliving my greatest embarrassments. I’m the only one who still gives a flying fluff on the rare occasion that I actually dredge those memories out from the abyss.

Nah. If I’m going to go public about the shit that keeps me up at night, I’m at least going to give it a reason. So, this truth that I’m sharing? Consider it a pep-talk, a lesson, a declaration of love to those of you like me who stare at the ceiling while your brain hamster-wheels through every single cringeworthy fact about yourself until you fall into a pit of anxiety that resembles sleep but really, really isn’t.

So, *claps and rubs hands together* let’s get started.

Hi. My (pseudo)name is Marigold and I live with my parents, don’t have a job, and don’t know how to drive. Did I mention I'm a middle-millennial?

This ish bothers me so much that I swan dive for cover whenever someone asks me questions about those topics. I’ve become a slick Maverick at getting the hell outta Dodge at the first hint of, “So, what do you do?”

Just, BOOM, smoke-bomb, can’t catch me homie, pEAce!

🎶 I’ll never te~ell. 🎶

The reality is, I never gave much of a bother about it all until recently. Recently being all the empty hours I’ve had since 2017 (that’s right, fam, I was way ahead of the pandemic) to ruminate over the sad state of my grown-uphood.

Granted, in 2017 it was discovered that my brain had found itself a roomie that had to be forcibly evicted through surgery, and I’ve been unable to commit to any kind of schedule since as a result of the disease that manifested my brain’s roomie in the first place. Which, obvi, means that I haven’t been able to make more than what the government gives in disability which means I can’t afford to live like an adult.

Oh, *flaps hand dismissively* and there are seizures.

Truly thrilling stuff.

I can’t say if my living situation, lack of employment or inability to perform a basic skill most learn in adolescence would cause the kind of anxiety and self-hate rhetoric that it does if I’d been making at least a bare-minimum effort before my brain’s roomie started boxing the inside of my skull. Thing is, before all of that was even a blip on my radar, I was already plagued by feelings of inadequacy.

I never finished college – I’m so far from academic, I’m orbiting a different sun – and worked in restaurants pretty much since I dropped out. Due to extenuating circumstances, I never hit any of the milestones the majority of people (or what I’ve been made to believe is the majority) do before they’re 25.

When I lived alone, it sucked vomit-flavored lollies. I hated the place, loathed, about as much as I hated the guy I lived with. He was loud. And messy. And stole my food.

I moved back home shortly after moving into the apartment – maybe a handful of months – and have been here, with my parentals, ever since.

Thing is … okay, I know I’m not the only person out of their 20s who lives at home and can’t drive. There’re too many people in the world for me to be the only one. Heck, Europe has made a culture of either living at home or living very close to family (as far as I’m aware, don’t quote me on this), and thousands of people don’t bother to learn to drive when they, like myself, live in a city. I know these things.

But knowing doesn’t make those feelings of inadequacy any less prominent. It’s embarrassing. Whenever I’m asked by anyone within or above my age-group where I’m at in my life, I shrivel up and die on the inside. I feel like I’m leagues behind, like I haven’t fully developed and I’m too old to be where I am, existing the way I do. A lot of the time I feel like an overgrown teenager, despite the fact that emotionally, mentally? I’m leaps and bounds from a hormonal tantrum and I haven’t rolled my eyes at my mum in ages.

Of course, you could say the whole health sitch contributes to a lot of what I’m unable to accomplish at the mo’, but really though? Does it? It kinda feels like a cop-out, an excuse.

“Hey, Mari, what exactly is the lesson here?”

Right, yes, glad you asked!

The point I’m trying to make here, friends, is that, as embarrassing as being a lady-child is, it is what it is. I’m not less of a person for it. It doesn’t make or break who I am.

Where you live and what you do to make money have nothing to do with who you are – your thoughts, your actions, your ability to be a good, whole human person.

You’re not stupid or lazy or unsuccessful because you live with your parents, because you might not be working that career-type-job where you rake in way above minimum wage, because you can’t drive. Take it from someone who has had to face their mortality: NONE. OF. IT. MATTERS.

You’re doing great, just like I’m doing great, with what you’re given. Enjoy the fact that you get to spend quality time with your parents, time you probably wouldn’t get otherwise. Make memories. Appreciate that you’re not alone. Jobs come and go, money comes and goes; relationships and emotional support, that's the real victory.

And if you can’t drive, there’re buses and taxis and airplanes and Ubers and trains, etcetera, etcetera; friends who genuinely don't mind picking your booty up. (I promise, if they say they don't care, they don't, let them chauffeur your glamorous self around without getting all guilty, okay?)

Although I might regularly be gripped by feelings of having epically failed at life, reminding myself that I’m not actually a giant child helps. Maturity has nothing to do with where I sleep at night, how much I earn and whether or not I can parallel park. Or ... or reverse, or drive forward, or figure out the whole pedal situation.

Whatever.

I hope this helps some of you out there who've been feeling those inadequacy feels. Or, at the very least, I hope it helps make it clear that you're not alone.

If I've got this, then you're definitely exactly where you ought to be. Don't let anyone tell you different. And if they do? Send them my way, I've got your back 😎