Adulting…

 

 

 

A FEW months ago, I was watching a show on Netflix by a famous stand up comedian, and a word “adulting” that he used in it, intrigued me. I looked up for its exact meaning in the dictionary and it said, the practice of behaving responsibly. A general interpretation of this would be, earning bread for the family, buying a house, educating the children, raising a family. But that prolific comedian said, adulting is walking with your elders in their illnesses, and when time comes, seeing them off forever. When he said that, it made a different impact on me. It was like an instant discord between my mind and heart , where my mind was saying “reality check” and the heart was not opening the door for this fact to come in. However, the word stayed with me. Days passed by and one fine day, my father-in-law left us all of a sudden. He was gone and the house suddenly became empty. His room and our lives were going to be vacant forever. We all felt lost, rather forlorn. But life refused to stop.

 

Amongst the rituals, relatives and reminiscences, responsibilities stood in the forefront of all. One day at the break of the dawn, while sipping coffee in my balcony, ‘adulting’ dawned upon me. Finally, the word and its meaning had struck the right chord in my heart. It made me think about this whole entity in a deeper sense. As we grow older, we become busy in fulfilling our responsibilities and commitments. That is adulthood, which we all cruise through like a pro. Slowly as humans, we adapt, we adjust to certain changes, challenges and charades that life throws at us. But we find it difficult to accept, don’t we? That’s where adulting steps in. Adulting is accepting the changes that happen in life gracefully, some inevitable and some not so inevitable. It is to look at life as more than mere responsibility. It means to respect people in our lives more than just a duty. Walking that extra step on the morning walk with our elders, agreeing to certain amendments that they suggest, just to make them happy and taking a day off just to spend time with them.. all of it. It is living with the memories of people who have gone.

 

It is the awareness that you are feeling weak because of their demise and loss yet you have to strengthen the inner core with the lessons that they taught. In day to day life, we easily drift away from people on trivial arguments and disagreements, forgetting that we are erasing that one possibility of creating so many beautiful moments with them. We allow friends, loved ones to depart. All that, for a three lettered monster “ego”. Adulting is looking at people and situations beyond right and wrong. It is loving them unconditionally. Sometimes it’s okay to lose the argument, if that makes your loved one stay. Simply being there for someone, effortlessly is also priceless. One word and so many lessons learnt! Truly there is no better teacher than life. As I was going through this mélange of emotions, my daughter tapped on my shoulder, and said as if reading my mind, we are all in this together ‘Ma’ and hugged me. I could see her growing into an “adult” already… To all out there, adulting with time, more power to you, we all are in this together…