What To Do When You’re Tired of Adulting

Image: Thought Catalog

How are you doing? Are you finding this transition out of #pandemiclife as bananas as I am?

This week I was feeling SO much tension between the desire to be outside playing and the feeling that I should be working instead.

After going around in circles pretty much every day this week about what I should be doing, I got very little done. I also didn’t go outside and play that much.😭

But then I remembered that summer is for pleasure.

Summer is for picnics and melty popsicles and eating sun-warmed berries straight off the vine. It’s for fireside drinks with old friends and impromptu dance parties and skinny-dipping under the stars.

Little kids understand this inherently. They know that summer is meant for tree climbing and made-up games and running through an icy sprinkler on a hot day.

So if you’re feeling any of that tension between adulting and the desire to feel free after a year plus of isolation and stress, I suggest you get in touch with the seven-year-old version of yourself.

At seven you were still wild and free. Unencumbered by a ton of shoulds or self-consciousness about how you looked or what was cool and what wasn’t.

That part of you is still in there. It’s your core essence.

Almost everything you loved at seven, you love still. The dreams and passions you had at seven are still in there too. You’ve probably just covered them up with layers and layers of conforming to societal expectations and adult obligations.

This week I want you to spend some time connecting with that inner child essence. Remembering what you love about summer.

Climbing trees. Swimming in the ocean. Spending hours reading in the backyard with no one telling you where to be or what to do.

And I want you to give yourself permission to go there. Call out sick from work. Send your kids to day camp. Let the house be dirty for the day. Do whatever you have to do.

We have all been coping for a long time.

It’s time to reconnect with your wildness. It’s time to remember that summer is the season of pleasure.