When I was a little girl, I always dreamt of growing up so I could do whatever I fancied: eat all the biscuits I wanted, stay up however late I wished, wander out the front door without asking anyones permission. Now, looking back, I can only chuckle at that naïve pint-sized version of myself. Reality swanned in the day I moved into my own flat: cleaning, cooking, paying rent, juggling bills, trudging around Sainsburys with a single wage that squeaked by in pounds and pennies. I honestly believed that freedom meant deciding whats for supper. Never did it occur to me it involved desperately working out if I had enough for both tea bags and washing-up liquid.
One morning, it dawned on me that Id not managed a peaceful breakfast in weeks. Up at the crack of dawn, quick shower, bed made in a jumble, then sprinting to catch the double-decker. On the way, Id remember I hadnt replied to that work email, that the WiFi bill was due before Friday, and that my debit card was teetering on its overdraft limit. “The freedom of adulthood” turned out to be a never-ending list of chores, no grand wish fulfilled at all.
When I finally stumbled home at night, exhaustion fell on me like a sack of bricks. Id fling open the fridge, desperately hoping for something to miraculously prepare itself. But nothere was always the washing up to do, the chopping, the cooking, and then the washing up again. Some evenings I just had bread and cheddar, simply to avoid encountering the frying pan. But even then, my brain would mutter to me: the water bill is outrageous, check the leak under the sink, the clothes from this morning already smell because I forgot to hang them out.
My friends always chirped, Lets meet up! But whenever we tried to fix a time, everyone had some problem: one stuck at work late, another caring for a sick gran, a third utterly skint, a fourth simply worn ragged. During our teenage years, wed see each other nearly every day; now, a whole month could slip by without a single catch-up. And when we did finally manage to gather, wed moan about fatigue, bills, and nagging aches. We were young, yet sounded like pensioners at a bus stop.
The hardest blow was learning theres no such thing as proper rest anymore. Even weekends became another tick-box exercise: laundry, hoovering, getting ready for the next week, popping to Tesco, fixing whatever had broken this time. One Saturday I caught myself crying while mopping the kitchen floor, realising, Even when Im meant to be resting, Im not. As a kid Id called this freedom, but in truth I was now doing the endless things adults once did for meexcept now there was no one to help.
Work itself was nothing as Id pictured. I’d thought having a job would bring fulfilment. No one told me it also meant plastering on a smile even when I felt rotten, listening to daft comments, chasing targets that shifted like the British weather, and watching most of my wages melt away on things I never even saw. One lunchtime, I sat crunching the numbers to decide: do I buy lunch or save the pounds for my Oyster card? Nobody explains that grown-up life is just a cascade of little calculations.
Id imagined growing up meant freedom. In reality, its an odd dance of weariness, responsibility, and the briefest moments of peace that slip through your fingers like fog.
