Doing the Adult Things

Dear friend, I feel like a terrible adult.

Let me explain. 

I got home from my sister’s wedding in late September, and I dropped my suitcase in the middle of my apartment before going to bed. Seems reasonable for 11pm, right?

When laundry knocks you out

The next day, I decided to sort the dirty from the clean clothes. They lay in piles on my kitchen floor for two days until I decided it was laundry day. I started the washer. 

And then I forgot. 

So I started it again the next day. 

And then I forgot. 

I admit that I did this for two more days before I remembered to switch the four-times-washed clothes to the dryer. And then the folding? I used to joke that it took 7-10 business days for me to put my laundry away. This time took nearly a month. 

Sometimes it feels like it takes too much energy to do the big “adulty” tasks that need to be done. We make to-do lists with items that seem to pile onto one another and become the Leaning Tower of Anxiety. We may pile each task on one by one until we wonder when (not if!) it will come tumbling down.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa tilts at a 3.99º angle. Physicists say that the most severe angle it should be able to lean before falling is 5.44º. My Tower felt around 4.7º.

If you are an Enneagram person, I am an Enneagram 9. For non-Enneagram people, this means it feels easy for me to default to laziness when I feel stressed. The Enneagram Group refers to this as my emotional drive being “sloth,” or forgetting myself and experiencing low energy to fulfill my needs, often to keep internal and external peace. So how do we overcome our defaults and do the things that actually need to be done—around the house, at work, with family and friends, in the church…?

This morning, I wrote out my list. (Again.) Here it is:

• Clean the counters (kitchen, bathroom)
• Scrub the bathtub
• Get an oil change
• Put the box of clothes away
• Mail books to a friend
• File my stack of bills
• Buy groceries
• Decorate the Christmas tree
• Plug in Roomba
• Move book boxes
• Hang curtains in the bedroom

Some people might think this looks like an easy, manageable list. I mean, plug in my Roomba? How simple?!

But this is my Tower. Some of the items have been on this list for weeks or months, and I’ve frankly avoided them all. 

Until today.

Today, I decided to start with one adult thing. 

Today, I got an oil change. So many things could have prevented me from doing this. There’s snow on the ground. I waited in line for 45 minutes. I drove straight from work—and luckily, I was the last car they would see for the night. But I started.

And as I write this, I feel like the Tower is leaning a little less dramatically. 

The goal is to feel stable again.

So, friend. If you feel like your Tower is piled high and leaning so far that you’re waiting for it to break, take a breath. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your laundry can wait one more if you need to hand wash a couple dishes tonight so you have clean ones tomorrow. Write out the blocks of your tower and then forget. Cross off one adult thing that you can get done today, and just start with just one. 

Start with one and your Tower will straighten a little. 

Start with one and your anxiety can shrink a little. 

Start with one today, and you can do one more thing tomorrow and the next day until you feel your Tower is manageable.

You can do the adult things. I believe in you. You’ve got this.