I try to start every day with a to-do list.

Some days I get it all done. Some days I completely forget to even make a list. Most days I am somewhere in-between, crossing out the easier items with satisfaction and rolling over the rest to the next day’s list.

Order business cards. Work on my first ever Focus Word for the year. Write. Blog. Prepare for reviews at work. Fight writer’s block. Navigate the emotional exhaustion. Eat less sugar. Plan for what’s next. Try to be my best. Save money. Pay off debt. Try to contribute more to retirement.

Being an adult is hard.

Drop the donut, pick up a green juice.

It’s a new week again. Turn off the alarm, get ready, seek out some form of coffee. Walk out the door. Follow through on the next indicated step, even when I would much rather be doing other things. Complete tasks when and where I can. Writing instead of working, working instead of working out, waking up and going rather than sleeping.

Becoming an adult is hard.

Contribute to that retirement fund, even if the minimum is the only amount I can bear to see taken out of my minuscule paycheck. Feel guilty for not setting aside more. On the bright side, it’s taken out of the check pre-tax. I curse it all the same.

Gone are the days of sleeping until past noon. Was I really able to do that only a few short years ago? That person I used to be seems so far away now.

Adult responsibilities are hard.

Dentist appointments, self-evalutations for annual reviews, re-vamp the resume for the umpteenth time, network, promote ourselves, make time for cleaning and laundry. Daily tasks we all do, you and me, in the name of progress.

This is adulthood?

Express ourselves in ways that don’t offend. Be kind. Be there for a friend in need. Act as a shoulder to cry on. Be a motivator. Keep our promises. Be dependable. Pay our bills. Save. Invest.

This is us being adults.

Facing our fears. Squashing our insecurities. Refusing to run away. Choosing a path not because it is easy, but because it is what we want in our heart of hearts. Budgeting, planning, making a future.

We are a miracle, every adult one of us.

Who we are, what we are doing, the people we are becoming- we are amazing. We are so full of potential. We are the motivated, the capable, the go-getters. We are tenacious and stubborn and spunky and more self-seeking than we care to admit to, and we certainly won’t take no for an answer.

I never knew adulthood would feel like this. I never knew it would be so challenging, so exhausting, so enriching, so beautiful.

I never knew being an adult meant one simple thing: suiting up and showing up, every single day. So simple, yet so hard.

We have never been younger, smarter, more beautiful, or more ready to take on the world than we are at this very moment. This is it. This is our time.

Bring it on, adulthood.

xoxo

Sarah