When you’re a kid, adults look like mythical creatures. They know how to drive, pay bills, use washing machines, fill out forms and speak confidently to customer service representatives. They’re calm under pressure. They have folders. Actual folders. You assume that somewhere around your 30th birthday, there’s a graduation ceremony where society hands you a blazer, a sensible pen, and a secret handbook called How Everything Works.
I’m in my forties and I can confirm that handbook doesn’t exist.
What actually happens is you wake up one morning and realise you’re now responsible for absolutely everything. Nobody checks your homework any more. Nobody tells you when to go to bed. Nobody reminds you to take a coat. At first, this sounds wonderful. Then you discover you’re apparently expected to decide what’s for dinner every single day for the rest of your natural life.
Every day.
Forever.
How has this become normal?
As a child, food simply appeared.
“What’s for tea?”
And somehow, magically, there was shepherd’s pie.
As an adult, the conversation goes like this:
“What do you fancy for tea?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about pasta?”
“No.”
“Curry?”
“No.”
“Pizza?”
“Not really.”
“Well what do you want then?”
“I don’t know.”
Scientists are currently searching the galaxy for intelligent life while ignoring the fact that nobody in a relationship has successfully answered this question since 1974.
Then you go to the supermarket, where adulthood reaches its purest form.
Children go to supermarkets and see sweets, cake and toys.
Adults walk in and immediately become obsessed with things that would horrify their younger selves.
“Ooh, kitchen rolls on offer.”
“Three for two on dishwasher tablets? We’d be mad not to.”
At some point in life, you become genuinely excited by a storage solution.
Not a holiday.
Not a sports car.
A plastic box with a lid.
You find yourself ringing your partner from aisle seven.
“Don’t buy any organisers. I’ve found organisers.”
Twenty-year-old you would be devastated.
The other thing nobody warns you about is that old people were lying when they said they’d become wiser.
Nobody becomes wiser.
We just become more confident while being wrong.
As a child, you think adults have all the answers.
As an adult, you discover most people are simply making educated guesses and hoping nobody asks a follow-up question.
Someone says, “I’ve had a chat with my financial adviser.”
Immediately everyone nods like that makes sense.
What even is a financial adviser?
I’ve got questions.
How did you get one?
Do they come to your house?
Are they assigned to you like a dentist?
I’ve got a bloke who cuts my hair. Is that close enough?
Even basic household tasks feel suspicious.
Every time I use the washing machine, I feel like I’m role-playing as an adult.
There are approximately seven thousand settings on modern washing machines.
Cottons.
Synthetics.
Mixed Load.
Sportswear.
Eco 40-60.
What happened to “wash clothes”?
At this point I just press the button that sounds most optimistic and hope for the best.
Half the time I’m convinced the machine could secretly launch a submarine.
Then there are passwords.
Adult life is now 40% remembering passwords and 60% resetting them.
Every website demands a password containing twelve characters, three capitals, two symbols, one number and evidence that you’ve slain a dragon.
Then it says:
“Your password expires in 30 days.”
Why?
Who am I protecting?
Nobody is trying to break into my online account for garden furniture.
And when you inevitably forget it:
“Your new password cannot be similar to your old password.”
Well neither can I.
I don’t remember the old one.
That’s literally why we’re having this conversation.
The injuries get weird too.
Children can fall from trees, crash bicycles into walls and bounce straight back up.
Adults pull a muscle opening a window.
You reach a certain age where every injury sounds ridiculous.
“What happened to your back?”
“Turned around too quickly.”
“What happened to your neck?”
“Used two pillows.”
“What happened to your knee?”
“Honestly, I think sleeping did it.”
Your body starts operating like an office printer.
Everything still technically works, but there’s always a warning light on somewhere.
Socialising changes as well.
In your twenties, somebody says:
“Want to go out tonight?”
You’re out in ten minutes.
In your forties, somebody suggests meeting at 8 p.m. and suddenly you’re conducting a risk assessment.
“Eight? On a Thursday?”
“I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“We’ll be tired.”
“Where’s the parking?”
“How loud is the restaurant?”
“Will there be chairs?”
You don’t even want entertainment any more.
You want comfortable seating and moderate noise levels.
The dream evening used to be a nightclub.
Now it’s finding a pub where you can hear the person opposite.
The greatest scam of adulthood, though, is discovering that everyone else is just as confused as you are.
That confident bloke discussing mortgage rates at the barbecue?
Confused.
The woman explaining investments?
Confused.
The manager who’s always got a spreadsheet open?
Especially confused.
We’re all just winging it.
Some wing it using Excel.
Some wing it using confidence.
Some wing it by buying air fryers and pretending that counts as personal growth.
The truth is adulthood isn’t a magical stage of life where everything suddenly makes sense.
It’s mostly Googling things your parents appeared to know instinctively, trying not to forget bin day, and wondering whether you’ve got enough cheese in the fridge.
And after years of observation, I’ve finally discovered the one thing that separates a successful adult from everyone else.
It’s not intelligence.
It’s not maturity.
It’s not experience.
It’s pretending to know what you’re doing for just a few seconds longer than everyone else.
