I’m trying to make big decisions without asking “an adult.” Because that’s me. I’m the adult. For ten years I drove Charlie, my scrappy little used Toyota. When it came time to buy a new car, I decided to do it on my own. I’m financially stable, I am a homeowner, I vote, but I’ll admit, it felt weird not consulting my parents. I’d bought Charlie when I was a teenager—I’d used my own money, but my mom was with me the whole time. I had no idea how to buy a car completely on my own. So I brought Aubrey Plaza. Aubrey’s got kind of a father-figure vibe, so she gave me a certain confidence walking into the dealership.
Aubrey was accidentally helpful in the negotiation process, because she’s batshit crazy. I was getting frustrated with the cliché trappings of the process and kept asking, “Do we really need to do this? You’re going through the motions of being a sleazy used-car salesman, but couldn’t we just talk like two normal humans?” Aubrey sat in the corner and occasionally interjected, “My uncle owns a dealership across town and we could just go there. He’s also in the mafia,” without looking up from her phone. We were less “good cop/bad cop” and more “cop who hates negotiating/cop having a psychotic break.” The technique was effective regardless.
I went home and called my mom to tell her I’d bought a car. Maybe that kind of thing is newsworthy enough to warrant a call to your mom anyway, but my motivation was that of a child who’d learned to tie her shoe. What’s the point of being so independent if you don’t get a gold star from your mother for being such a big girl! Maybe the next time I buy a car I’ll wait a week to call her. If my current track record holds up, I have until 2024 to develop that kind of restraint.
The further I get into self-improvement, the more I hope I’ll grow some new part of my brain that makes me take care of my responsibilities automatically. Like highway blindness. If I grabbed my keys for a Krispy Kreme run in my sweatpants, I’d come to twenty minutes later, wearing pleated khakis and getting my oil changed. Sadly, I am conscious through every excruciating moment of paying my parking tickets on the DMV website and cleaning a little bit each day so it doesn’t pile up on me. I expected to take an interest in my retirement plan, understanding general car maintenance, and doing my laundry on a schedule instead of three days after I ran out of underwear. But just thinking about that stuff makes me want to lie on the floor and eat packets of Easy Mac until I feel too swollen and turgid to do anything but dream up elaborate ways to murder everyone who says “life hack.” I power through. I’m still an embarrassment to civilized society, but now I change the toilet paper roll instead of resting it vertically on top of the old one. There’s hope.
The trickiest areas to improve are my fitness habits. When I work on them, it’s great for a while because I don’t feel so sluggish and I have fewer mood swings, but shitty because healthy food tastes gross. Naturally luminous, perfectly proportioned people are always full of helpful tips to set me on the right path. Oh, aloe vera water is the new chia seed? Cool, I’ll just work up the reserve of self-loathing I’ll need to choke down that spit-flavored miracle drink. Why don’t I just eat powdered egg whites until I pass out? (Eesh, add “food issues” to the therapy list.)
When it comes to exercise, I’ll start out slow—just an easy hike. The next day I’ll be too sore to move but I’ll say the reason I can’t hike again for a few days is because my allergies (to sunlight and pain) are acting up. I don’t know who I’m “saying” that to—obviously I don’t invite anyone to witness these feeble attempts at physical activity. Being healthy is testing my commitment, but I’m feeling pretty good about my monthly dose of seeing-the-sky.
Then I have to make the bed, and that’s where it all falls apart. I hate making the bed so much. Way more than I should. I can’t make my bed without collapsing into a full-on existential crisis. So you made the bed. It looks nice. But . . . you are just going to get BACK into bed tonight. Then you’ll have to make it again tomorrow, and on and on and on and then you’ll be dead. And then I’ll start thinking, Well, why do any housework? Why do the dishes? You’re just going to get them dirty again. Maybe you should start eating every meal with your hands, bent over the trash can. Why work to improve any area of your life when everything good that happens is going to require more and more maintenance?!
Maybe giving up on this adulthood thing wouldn’t be so bad. In movies and TV the man-child always has a moment of clarity and gets his act together for his wife or his baby, but what if I just didn’t? What if I just kept returning the proverbial mini-fridge?