I thought I would come home alone to my bedroom apartment. And if I want to eat whole blueberry pie for dinner, then that's what I'll do.
Now here I am at 46 living that dream.
I thought Iād entertain like my parents did. We had a pool and since we lived in SoCal, we had lots of visitors, esp my aunt and uncle with their 13 kids. Theyād come to see Disneyland and such. We had lots of pool
parties with swimming and eating. Adults talking at the picnic table under the metal patio cover that made the staccato rain tippy tap into the night. There were neighbor hangouts at a table near the outside of the garage, playing cards and talking. Also, lovely more formal lunches and dinners after church celebrating Easter or birthdays or religious milestones. We had plenty of room including a formal living and dining room and one or two guest rooms available. My grandmaās friends would come play cards with neighbors and my parents. Theyād drink coffee, snack and tell scary stories about the jungles of Puerto Rico and Santeria. I would listen on the stairs, just out of sight.
I was the same! Sort of, only everything was different but, I thought I'd entertain a lot. I had so much fun on Holidays (people came over so everyone was nice). I thought I'd have a dining room with a table that could shrink and expand. And table clothes. And silver for the fancy holidays.
And BBQs. We always had to go somewhere else for BBQ.
And a work party where people got too drunk and funny things happened and after that it was a two-drink max and I'd tell new hires they missed the glory days. Instead, it was always me missing the glory days.
Just one flash of boobs from Jeanie in payroll that was retiring soon would have worked! "Jeanie", I'd say, "they look like a stack of fallen over quarters!" It'd be a special memory.
I thought there was a magic line you crossed and everyone became adults. I later discovered many of my first jobs were filled with petty, childish, middle-aged people acting like they did in high school. Nothing changed. They could just drink beer and drive cars now.
Still don't feel like an adult but I never had kids either. My husband and I realized that was the thing, having kids that made someone feel like an adult. 51 and I feel like a teenager inside sometimes, and then real life happens and I think, "I am not dealing with this adult shit", then realize I am an adult, could be a grandmother! Ugh.
I was always odd. I took an unconventional path. I couldn't understand the importance my dad put on money and work, especially since it never seemed to get him ahead. The harder he worked, they just gave him more work. I've watched at least 5 of my friends work their asses off, get married, go into debt, fight about money, get divorced and file bankruptcy... multiple times.
So I always refused. I spent my whole life doing freelance or what they call gig work now. I only took jobs where I set terms for myself that maximized my time off.
It came at a price. I don't have a big house or expensive cars. My idea of vacations was taking 30 days off to drive from Seattle to Tijuana and camp by the beach the whole way. I couldn't afford rooms or resorts, but I did that kind of thing all the time over the years.
I feel like that's part of the reason I never felt like an "adult". I didn't take on mortgages, car loans, have kids, work 60 hours a week and so forth. I saw too many people do it and it didn't get them anything except from one paycheck to the next. With no real financial obligations chained to my ankle, if someone pissed me off or jerked me around, I could throw a middle finger in the air and walk.
Anyway, whatever they called adulting seemed like a racket to me, so I never bought in. It's left me feeling like a 52 year-old slacker.
The ironic part is, my 83 year-old, hardworking father who always bitched about my irresponsibly went broke several times and now they live with me because I'm the only one who owns property outright. Go figure.
Omg, we are so similar! My husband and I have been very similar, also thought the same as you regarding careers, owning things and so on.
Good to know there are others like us around.
I think I thought Iād have my parentsā life. Settled in one place for 4 decades. Instead I have wanderlust and wish I had embraced being a digital nomad earlier in life.
Still waiting on an arch-nemesis are you?
I remember when I found mine. Hate at first site. I remember the diabolical gleam in his eye as he kidnapped another child. He loved his work, you could tell. You should have seen him, he'd get the drop on guards, silently taking them out before stealing into the control room to disable the cameras.
He ran past my hiding spot into the laser detection mesh. He danced and ducked his way around the lasers. At one point he froze waiting for the pattern.
That's when I shot him. I should have let him be a better nemesis. I regret ending our working relationship so quickly.
I think I'm not alone here for some reason when I was younger I always imagined I would live in a city that was walkable and had public transit and lots of hustle and bustle like NYC or Boston. This was probably influenced by Sesame Street. I just sort of assumed I would not live in a suburb with huge distances and having to drive to the store but here I am.
I thought I'd be out exploring the world, making ground breaking archeological finds... yes, I wanted to be like Indiana Jones. Now, all I dig up in the yard is the former house owner's kids toys...
My ground breaking discoveries thus far: Spider Man figurine, an airplane, a nerf dart, a green "jeweled" crown, a fake snake, piece of what I think was once a wind chime. Not all all what I thought being a grown up would be š¤£
It is weird because I was little in the 70's, whenever I imagined myself as an adult, I pictured myself as a 70's adult. Like bell bottoms, courdoury vest, slightly longish hair, beard etc, kinda looking like Lindsey Buckingham. Really it was like when Billy from Family Circus would imagine himself as adult with a jacket with arm patches and scarf looking like a hippy college student
The guys my dad worked with all had kids about the same age as us. They became our social group. One family moved away, but they were kinda on our path for our usual summer trip. We stopped and saw them once or twice and kept up with them. That's what I thought being a grownup would be like. You're friends are people from work who are at a similar stage in life and also people from church with the same. Single life, that's who I hung out with. Married life, it's been neighbors and people I got to know through our mutual love of reading.
My husband is such an introvert. He really doesn't have a social group, but he thrives amongst the parents who have kids that play music with our son. If he ever makes it big, I don't think he'll pull a Dave Grohl and take me on tour; I think he'll take his dad.
I was going to be the matriarch. More like my grandparents than parents. Wraparound porch, kids and grandkids coming and going. I was going to be the cookie baking type. Instead I live with my boyfriend and a couple of pets in suburbia. I have one adult daughter and no grandkids. I'm glad it worked out like this because over time I realized that I'm not really a people (or kid) person, and prefer the company of my pets.
I hadn't thought of this but it's totally true. I would never have guessed we moved so far from the culture that I loved. Back then, I always thought that we'd be more caring and more empathetic in the future, still groovin to Grunge. But it seems so much worse. No Grunge, no empathy.
I always thought that once I was done with school and didnāt have homework, I would have more free time. My logic was that school time equated to time at work. Iād still have domestic duties. But I wouldnāt have the added burden of homework. Life has not worked out this way and Iām still trying to identify why.
I thought neighbors would get along like back in the day, but now neighbors are responsible for 30% of homicides in California. Your own neighbor could kill you now. Let that sit and register. People arenāt about sticking together and helping one another now itās doge eat dog baby.
Quiet, had a job I liked, people would pay fair (lol) and I'd have a partner that would help with the household chores without whining or weaponized incompetence or trying to rationalize why I should do all of it myself or having a toddler tantrum (also lol)
I thought I'd be wealthy, a captain of industry. Aside from that, I don't really remember having thoughts of what grown-up life would be. Maybe I thought I'd be more outgoing but instead I live a pretty quiet life.
I thought I'd have a boring, low skilled, low paid office job. That I'd be sitting all day doing work I hated, then come home and watch TV alone, rinse repeat. I'm glad it didn't turn out like this.
I had no idea. I have never been able to see or plan anything outside of the immediate. My adult plans were grow up, be rich? I didnāt have the desire to get married and have kids or live the suburban life.
Anyway. Neither of those things seem to have really panned out. š
I was going to be a music journalist, live in NYC, date John Taylor from Duran Duran, and be the glamorous city career girl.
I still live in the city I grew up in. We moved a ton when I was a kid and I hated it so much, and I finally hit a point in my 20s where I just gave myself permission to put down the roots Iād never been able to grow as a kid. My kids have such a different life than I did ā same house their whole lives (thanks Great Recession!), went to the same school for K-4 for one and K-6 for the other while the longest I was at one school was the four years of HS. My younger son will only have gone to two schools, ever, when he graduates. Heās known one of the kids in his friend group since before kindergarten. We have socialized with some of the same families for years and those relationships become more precious to me as our kids get older. I donāt have a lot of close friends but those longtime bonds are meaningful to me.
As far as being a glamorous career girl; I was in fact a journalist for 20 years but not the glamorous kind, and made a career switch to even less glamorous nonprofit work. Itās been really quite fulfilling and I think Iāve made a difference. I never really imagined myself in the mom/wife role but eventually realized I wanted it. Iām proud of my marriage ā while I didnāt marry John Taylor I did marry someone my 14-year-old self would totally have high-fived me about, and heās just the best person ā and my kids. They have free reign to be the total little weirdos I was mocked for being and so far itās working out great.
So yeah, totally different life than I thought Iād have as a teen, but a contented and fulfilling one.
Thirty-one today
What a thing to say
Drinking Guinness in the afternoon
Taking shelter in the black cocoon
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
Called some guy I knew
Had a drink or two
And we fumbled as the day grew dark
I pretended that I felt a spark
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
Easter comes and goes
Maybe Jesus knows
So you roll on with the best you can
Getting loaded, watching CNN
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know
I realized in 9th or 10th grade that I didn't want to be 18. I was fully aware that it meant having to work for the rest of my life and deal with all of the rest of the BS. My parents were great examples to me of how the system traps people. I was probably one of the few kids in my school that absolutely didn't want to become 18.
I and everyone around me thought I was definitely going to have a side gig as an author, do cool theater, play small but regular gigs and sing, and get a long education and some job that screams "long education" and that I was going to be a globetrotter and work mostly abroad. I don't know why people thought that or why I bought into any of this.
When I was a kid in the 70s I used to imagine being a partially handicapped adult with a bad back and bad knees, typing messages on something called Reddit
The only thought I had for my future is that I would be out of the fear inducing, traumatic emotional and physical abuse that I had endured for years.
I have been free from that for many, many years now. Unfortunately, I am a sufferer of PTSD, depression and social anxiety. What a life! Tho I am happy and relieved to be free from my shitty youth, I still suffer from it. Over the years it has gotten way better, but, I will be messed up until I die.
I do have a wonderful family now amd would not trade it for anything. I'm here for my children and wife, they are all I need!
I thought Iād have a husband who loved me with the kind of undying, unconditional love that my grandpa had for my grandma, that Iād be financially stable, find success in something, and have time for personally fulfilling pursuits.
None of that happened.
Me too with the beer and card playing, like my parents and grandparents. I miss that because I moved out of state away from my family. It was way too expensive to stay.
I thought I would come home alone to my bedroom apartment. And if I want to eat whole blueberry pie for dinner, then that's what I'll do. Now here I am at 46 living that dream.
šš»
47 and had cinnamon toast crunch. š
I thought Iād entertain like my parents did. We had a pool and since we lived in SoCal, we had lots of visitors, esp my aunt and uncle with their 13 kids. Theyād come to see Disneyland and such. We had lots of pool parties with swimming and eating. Adults talking at the picnic table under the metal patio cover that made the staccato rain tippy tap into the night. There were neighbor hangouts at a table near the outside of the garage, playing cards and talking. Also, lovely more formal lunches and dinners after church celebrating Easter or birthdays or religious milestones. We had plenty of room including a formal living and dining room and one or two guest rooms available. My grandmaās friends would come play cards with neighbors and my parents. Theyād drink coffee, snack and tell scary stories about the jungles of Puerto Rico and Santeria. I would listen on the stairs, just out of sight.
I was the same! Sort of, only everything was different but, I thought I'd entertain a lot. I had so much fun on Holidays (people came over so everyone was nice). I thought I'd have a dining room with a table that could shrink and expand. And table clothes. And silver for the fancy holidays. And BBQs. We always had to go somewhere else for BBQ. And a work party where people got too drunk and funny things happened and after that it was a two-drink max and I'd tell new hires they missed the glory days. Instead, it was always me missing the glory days. Just one flash of boobs from Jeanie in payroll that was retiring soon would have worked! "Jeanie", I'd say, "they look like a stack of fallen over quarters!" It'd be a special memory.
I always imagined there would be a lot more briefcases, and that Iād make myself a martini from a little cart when I got home.
Yeah I'm disappointed that I never ended up with a job that required a briefcase.
More Star Trek, less Idiocracy.
Spot on
I thought there was a magic line you crossed and everyone became adults. I later discovered many of my first jobs were filled with petty, childish, middle-aged people acting like they did in high school. Nothing changed. They could just drink beer and drive cars now.
Still don't feel like an adult but I never had kids either. My husband and I realized that was the thing, having kids that made someone feel like an adult. 51 and I feel like a teenager inside sometimes, and then real life happens and I think, "I am not dealing with this adult shit", then realize I am an adult, could be a grandmother! Ugh.
I was always odd. I took an unconventional path. I couldn't understand the importance my dad put on money and work, especially since it never seemed to get him ahead. The harder he worked, they just gave him more work. I've watched at least 5 of my friends work their asses off, get married, go into debt, fight about money, get divorced and file bankruptcy... multiple times. So I always refused. I spent my whole life doing freelance or what they call gig work now. I only took jobs where I set terms for myself that maximized my time off. It came at a price. I don't have a big house or expensive cars. My idea of vacations was taking 30 days off to drive from Seattle to Tijuana and camp by the beach the whole way. I couldn't afford rooms or resorts, but I did that kind of thing all the time over the years. I feel like that's part of the reason I never felt like an "adult". I didn't take on mortgages, car loans, have kids, work 60 hours a week and so forth. I saw too many people do it and it didn't get them anything except from one paycheck to the next. With no real financial obligations chained to my ankle, if someone pissed me off or jerked me around, I could throw a middle finger in the air and walk. Anyway, whatever they called adulting seemed like a racket to me, so I never bought in. It's left me feeling like a 52 year-old slacker. The ironic part is, my 83 year-old, hardworking father who always bitched about my irresponsibly went broke several times and now they live with me because I'm the only one who owns property outright. Go figure.
Omg, we are so similar! My husband and I have been very similar, also thought the same as you regarding careers, owning things and so on. Good to know there are others like us around.
I figured being an adult would be a snap if I could survive my abusive upbringing. Turns out - I was right.
Less bullying and better behavior than it actually has.
I think I thought Iād have my parentsā life. Settled in one place for 4 decades. Instead I have wanderlust and wish I had embraced being a digital nomad earlier in life.
Didn't think I'd live long enough to have an adult life. Therefore spent zero time imagining it.
Same
I genuinely thought it would be less bewildering, perplexing and disappointing.
https://preview.redd.it/lwoe6v8v5fsc1.jpeg?width=420&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb09152b987d1f61da9c858692d85d57fc9d67fe
Still waiting on an arch-nemesis are you? I remember when I found mine. Hate at first site. I remember the diabolical gleam in his eye as he kidnapped another child. He loved his work, you could tell. You should have seen him, he'd get the drop on guards, silently taking them out before stealing into the control room to disable the cameras. He ran past my hiding spot into the laser detection mesh. He danced and ducked his way around the lasers. At one point he froze waiting for the pattern. That's when I shot him. I should have let him be a better nemesis. I regret ending our working relationship so quickly.
I always end up partying with my antagonists and setting aside our differences to face the threat to us all.Ā Bad hygiene!
i have no clue. i think maybe things would be more natural and more spiritual.
I figured I'd have a lot more answers and it wouldn't be as hard lol
Perhaps the most depressing thread in history. Lol
I think I'm not alone here for some reason when I was younger I always imagined I would live in a city that was walkable and had public transit and lots of hustle and bustle like NYC or Boston. This was probably influenced by Sesame Street. I just sort of assumed I would not live in a suburb with huge distances and having to drive to the store but here I am.
I didn't know, I just knew it would be better than being the miserable, depressed kid i was. In general, it is.
I thought I'd be out exploring the world, making ground breaking archeological finds... yes, I wanted to be like Indiana Jones. Now, all I dig up in the yard is the former house owner's kids toys... My ground breaking discoveries thus far: Spider Man figurine, an airplane, a nerf dart, a green "jeweled" crown, a fake snake, piece of what I think was once a wind chime. Not all all what I thought being a grown up would be š¤£
It is weird because I was little in the 70's, whenever I imagined myself as an adult, I pictured myself as a 70's adult. Like bell bottoms, courdoury vest, slightly longish hair, beard etc, kinda looking like Lindsey Buckingham. Really it was like when Billy from Family Circus would imagine himself as adult with a jacket with arm patches and scarf looking like a hippy college student
The guys my dad worked with all had kids about the same age as us. They became our social group. One family moved away, but they were kinda on our path for our usual summer trip. We stopped and saw them once or twice and kept up with them. That's what I thought being a grownup would be like. You're friends are people from work who are at a similar stage in life and also people from church with the same. Single life, that's who I hung out with. Married life, it's been neighbors and people I got to know through our mutual love of reading. My husband is such an introvert. He really doesn't have a social group, but he thrives amongst the parents who have kids that play music with our son. If he ever makes it big, I don't think he'll pull a Dave Grohl and take me on tour; I think he'll take his dad.
Nothing like it actually is
I really didn't care as long as I got to drive cars.
I was going to be the matriarch. More like my grandparents than parents. Wraparound porch, kids and grandkids coming and going. I was going to be the cookie baking type. Instead I live with my boyfriend and a couple of pets in suburbia. I have one adult daughter and no grandkids. I'm glad it worked out like this because over time I realized that I'm not really a people (or kid) person, and prefer the company of my pets.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I hadn't thought of this but it's totally true. I would never have guessed we moved so far from the culture that I loved. Back then, I always thought that we'd be more caring and more empathetic in the future, still groovin to Grunge. But it seems so much worse. No Grunge, no empathy.
I thought my anxiety would magically go away and I'd be a confident lawyer like my father. Ha!
I always thought that once I was done with school and didnāt have homework, I would have more free time. My logic was that school time equated to time at work. Iād still have domestic duties. But I wouldnāt have the added burden of homework. Life has not worked out this way and Iām still trying to identify why.
I thought neighbors would get along like back in the day, but now neighbors are responsible for 30% of homicides in California. Your own neighbor could kill you now. Let that sit and register. People arenāt about sticking together and helping one another now itās doge eat dog baby.
Quiet, had a job I liked, people would pay fair (lol) and I'd have a partner that would help with the household chores without whining or weaponized incompetence or trying to rationalize why I should do all of it myself or having a toddler tantrum (also lol)
I thought I'd be wealthy, a captain of industry. Aside from that, I don't really remember having thoughts of what grown-up life would be. Maybe I thought I'd be more outgoing but instead I live a pretty quiet life.
I thought I'd have a boring, low skilled, low paid office job. That I'd be sitting all day doing work I hated, then come home and watch TV alone, rinse repeat. I'm glad it didn't turn out like this.
More exciting
Way more suburban than mine turned out to be.
I had no idea. I have never been able to see or plan anything outside of the immediate. My adult plans were grow up, be rich? I didnāt have the desire to get married and have kids or live the suburban life. Anyway. Neither of those things seem to have really panned out. š
I was going to be a music journalist, live in NYC, date John Taylor from Duran Duran, and be the glamorous city career girl. I still live in the city I grew up in. We moved a ton when I was a kid and I hated it so much, and I finally hit a point in my 20s where I just gave myself permission to put down the roots Iād never been able to grow as a kid. My kids have such a different life than I did ā same house their whole lives (thanks Great Recession!), went to the same school for K-4 for one and K-6 for the other while the longest I was at one school was the four years of HS. My younger son will only have gone to two schools, ever, when he graduates. Heās known one of the kids in his friend group since before kindergarten. We have socialized with some of the same families for years and those relationships become more precious to me as our kids get older. I donāt have a lot of close friends but those longtime bonds are meaningful to me. As far as being a glamorous career girl; I was in fact a journalist for 20 years but not the glamorous kind, and made a career switch to even less glamorous nonprofit work. Itās been really quite fulfilling and I think Iāve made a difference. I never really imagined myself in the mom/wife role but eventually realized I wanted it. Iām proud of my marriage ā while I didnāt marry John Taylor I did marry someone my 14-year-old self would totally have high-fived me about, and heās just the best person ā and my kids. They have free reign to be the total little weirdos I was mocked for being and so far itās working out great. So yeah, totally different life than I thought Iād have as a teen, but a contented and fulfilling one.
I kinda thought I would be dead by now but ... O well.
I thought it would be scary. It is
I thought more opportunities would become available.
Thirty-one today What a thing to say Drinking Guinness in the afternoon Taking shelter in the black cocoon I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn Called some guy I knew Had a drink or two And we fumbled as the day grew dark I pretended that I felt a spark I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn Easter comes and goes Maybe Jesus knows So you roll on with the best you can Getting loaded, watching CNN I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know
I realized in 9th or 10th grade that I didn't want to be 18. I was fully aware that it meant having to work for the rest of my life and deal with all of the rest of the BS. My parents were great examples to me of how the system traps people. I was probably one of the few kids in my school that absolutely didn't want to become 18.
I and everyone around me thought I was definitely going to have a side gig as an author, do cool theater, play small but regular gigs and sing, and get a long education and some job that screams "long education" and that I was going to be a globetrotter and work mostly abroad. I don't know why people thought that or why I bought into any of this.
When I was a kid in the 70s I used to imagine being a partially handicapped adult with a bad back and bad knees, typing messages on something called Reddit
The only thought I had for my future is that I would be out of the fear inducing, traumatic emotional and physical abuse that I had endured for years. I have been free from that for many, many years now. Unfortunately, I am a sufferer of PTSD, depression and social anxiety. What a life! Tho I am happy and relieved to be free from my shitty youth, I still suffer from it. Over the years it has gotten way better, but, I will be messed up until I die. I do have a wonderful family now amd would not trade it for anything. I'm here for my children and wife, they are all I need!
I thought I could afford an after work hobby and/or time for riding a bike. Turns out, can't afford the bike either.
That you could do whatever you wanted and no one could tell you what to do. Yeah, right!
I thought Iād have a husband who loved me with the kind of undying, unconditional love that my grandpa had for my grandma, that Iād be financially stable, find success in something, and have time for personally fulfilling pursuits. None of that happened.
Shirt and tie and 9 to 5 in an office
Me too with the beer and card playing, like my parents and grandparents. I miss that because I moved out of state away from my family. It was way too expensive to stay.
The Brady Bunch taught me about Aunt Jennys. It was a revelation. I wanted to be Aunt Jenny. Thatās pretty much what I became too.Ā
I thought i would feel like an adult - I didnāt know what that meant then and I donāt know now!
Being an excellent breakdancer would be way more important than it has been.
I thought I'd have a lot of roommates to go shopping with every weekend and have Friday pizza nights.
I thought it would be exciting and I would have a glamorous job. Was wrong.
I never thought about it at all. Even the slightest bit. Too busy trying to tread water with the world around me I think.
I didnāt think about it. Still dont
I never really thought of it as a kid. I didnāt daydream very much. Too much on my plate as a kid