Here’s an adulting conundrum:

You’re an adult, which means you’re most likely tired, achy, overwhelmed and stressed out. You want to start taking steps to feel better but you feel like you don’t have another minute to spare. So what do you do?

I’m with you. We’re all with you. All that means is it’s time to start small.

Here’s one simple step you can take to feel better each day that requires less than a minute.

Make your bed every morning.

I don’t mean to sound like your Mom here, so just bear with me. Making your bed is just the kind of small step that can begin your adulting recovery and here’s why:

Om shanti, dear Adulters!

Let’s get esoteric today, shall we?

Somewhere along your timeline, you’ve probably heard that meditation is really good for you. Science says so.

It can:

• Decrease depression and anxiety
• Decrease stress
• Boost your mood
• Improve your memory
• Improve our focus
• Improve your attention

and more!

Basically it’s an adulting dream.

SO WHY DON’T WE DO IT?

Ok adults, what’s our motto?

Well, we don’t have one (yet) but if we had one, it would be…something, something, yeah, yeah, increase happiness and decrease stress. Woo!

(Can you tell I was never on the cheerleading squad? Or any kind of squad?).

Well guess what? Houseplants are an adulting-er’s best friend. Because studies show they increase happiness and decrease stress. And some other awesome stuff too like help with concentration, improve productivity and remove toxins from the air.

Bottom line is, houseplants are awesome.

Oh wait. Except if you’re anything like me, YOU KILL THEM. And that is the worst kind of stress of all. Is there, honestly, anything more depressing than throwing out another plant that you failed to care for even though you really tried, you really really tried?

So how did I overcome my black thumb and start filling my home with stress relieving plants?

Hi.

I know it’s been a while.

I had this whole blogging thing down and then Mr. Juris Doctor and I bought a condo and started remodeling it. And by that I’ve been pretty much handling most of it while he is at the office. The result is that my my adulting capacities have been maxed out and every day has been a bit like this couple: fleeting joy crushed by the icy cold waves of terror and helplessness tossing me around like a ragdoll…

That ring, like my sanity, is gone forever.

For many of us, holidays can be a difficult, triggering, emotional, time. So as we enter this landmind of a season, I would like to send you all a very important adulting PSA.

This is true always, but there is something particularly sinister about the holidays that can make us forget that fact. Traditions, expectations, old patterns, family dynamics can make for a real boundary busting experience. But here are a few of the things that you, as an adult, DO NOT HAVE TO DO.

You don’t have to:

• Go somewhere you don’t want to go
• Stay somewhere you don’t want to stay
• Kiss, hug, touch someone you don’t want to
• Eat something you don’t want to
• Talk to someone you don’t want to
• Engage in a topic you don’t want to discuss
• Hide who you are
• Pretend to be someone else
• Take on any expectations from people around you
• Fit in
• Be “on”
• Spend money you don’t have
• Feel guilty for not doing the things you don’t want to do

That might not be what you’ve been taught but it is the truth. It is your adulting truth. You deserve to have boundaries and to take care of yourself.

Of course, you’ll notice that “be nice” wasn’t on the list. You can have boundaries without being a jerk. You can excuse yourself, disengage, decline without being aggressive, mean spirited or angry. Others might not respond in kind – people hate it when you set boundaries – but guess what? You don’t have to put up with it. Hooray for being an adult!

Ok, here we go and Happy Thanksgiving from the U.S.!

“Ughhhhhhhhhhh.” This is me last week, talking with a friend about the state of our country. “What we need is a revolution,”

“There’s one happening right now!” he said.

He’s right. I was going to write about blowdryers. But there is a revolution happening and I want to talk about it, so blowdryers will just have to wait.

This period we’re in is simultaneously beautiful and horrifying. For a potentially brief moment, victims have a voice and sexual predators are being brought to light. It’s a momentous, revolutionary time. But…

Yeah. Don’t get comfortable just yet. There’s a few things I really want us to think about.

As I write, it is dreary out and my sun lamp is going full blast.

Maybe you can get a little sun lamp therapy just from this picture?

So here’s my story…

In June, I quit my job of 6 years. What had once been a fun, stable, learning, growing, environment started to crumble around year 2. The charismatic, big-picture boss left and his neurotic, emotional, misogynist underling (let’s call him Mr. Potbelly) was promoted. He, in turn, hired a passive aggressive nightmare (let’s call her Ms. Greasy Hair) for his replacement.

And so, things began to crumble.

Today’s post is inspired by the ENDLESS row of soupy, mucky, cloudy days we’ve been having and DGGYST’s post encouraging us all to get our shit together and prepare for winter.

The days have been getting shorter and shorter and then, because we’re one of the states still functioning like a farming society, we set our clocks back an hour. So now I truly feel like I am living in darkness. And since then, I’ve just been feeling like this:

Not just physically but mentally. I am flat out of steam and I feel like everything around me is just…heavy.

It’s interesting, because this gif was titled “Lazy Polar Bear.” I hate that word – lazy. Yes, some people are lazy. But depression is often mislabled as laziness. 

If you’ve started to feel “lazy” as the days are getting shorter, then maybe you’re experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder.

In Al-Anon there’s this common phrase: “Adult child of an alcoholic.”

(Waaaait a minute, you’re saying, what does this have to do with fashion or hair? I’ll get us there, I promise).

It just means that you are an adult who had an alcoholic family member in your childhood.

But, for years, in my brain I heard it as “Adult-Child of an alcoholic.” As in, we were adults as children because there was an alcoholic in our life. We were little adult children.

I laughed out loud the day I realized I had been mis-translating it all those years.

But had I been mistranslating? Maybe in the literal sense, yes. But that word “adult child” was a phrase I needed to add to my vocabulary.

I had been an adult-child.