On Adulthood

I don't necessarily think being an adult comes from "having responsibilities" or "having your shit together" or having "stopped doing childish things." (Because I haven't really achieved any of those.) I feel that I began to become an adult when I began to have an "inner life," and I credit reaching a certain level of literacy for that. Having the faculties to read adult society's newspapers and magazines, to watch the news, to read "real" books that weren't for kids. To understand them, to form my own opinions, to leave the mental garden of childhood.

The internet was a revolution. We were the first generation to use it to help us grow up. I felt like I was becoming a citizen, with all the meanings that word entails. I could begin developing my own philosophy and outlook, as opposed to having parents or teachers tell me what they should be. I think that was a big part of being an adult. Posting on the Mobius Forum.  It was the first time I was able to have people talk TO me as opposed to talking AT me the way adults do with a child. MoFo was anonymous, where no one had to know my age, education, race, sex, class. It was a place to simply develop a life of the mind at a time when otherwise a kid isn't considered a real person, but sort of an extension of their parents.

Obviously life is a continuous progression, nobody blooms overnight. But I do think, among many many other things, that that was the start of it.

Also, I think of adulthood not necessarily as maturity, but as agency and freedom.

• College was where I finally met warm, kind and funny people who were real peers in both an intellectual and emotional sense. (You have no idea how happy I was to be out of high school and all its shallow retardedness, lawl.) 
• Going from riding a bike, to figuring out the bus and subway routes, to learning to drive and literally expanding the physical boundaries of my world. 
• Entering an adult relationship where the love was deep and reciprocated and getting engaged so we're socially acknowledged as a household. 
• Getting my own apartment where I felt it was really, finally, a home to call my own. I could decide what there was to eat, what the furniture was, who got to come over, what events I could plan. I was the first of my friends with my own apartment, so my social circle started to revolve around My Place. It's pretty awesome. 

All the transition points where I felt I became more adult have to do with agency. If anything, responsibility and boring-ness makes me feel more like a child. Adulthood isn't about going to work and paying bills, where you have to do arbitrary menial things because someone told you to, where you have to wear uncomfortable clothes and be on your best behavior, where people dictate your schedule and where you're embarrassed of the things that make you truly who you are.

"How's your new job?"
Letter to my cousin, February 1st, 2010

HI!! It's been a while since I've talked to you.

My job is okay. In terms of practical matters, the hours are very good, and the office is in an old townhouse, so it feels cozy and not officey at all. There are six people, so it's not huge. I'm glad to have a job in general, which keeps me from dying of boredom, and my parents are happy for me. We can finally eat dinner and have a conversation like normal human beings, instead of it being an interrogation: "When are you getting a job?"..."Have you thought about asking at..?" "I know a certain person who says they could introduce you to...." "Well, X's daughter went to school for Y and now is doing Z..."

When I was in college, I was asked, "Are you getting a job for the summer?" and in high school it was, "Have you applied for college?" and in middle school it was, "Have you done your homework?" and in elementary school, it was, "Stop making so much noise, your mother is tired." So not to be told to do something, which has never occurred for as long as I can remember, is pleasant for a change.

It's nice to make my own money, too. Even though life is less fun, maybe Big Aunt can retire in the next century. Maybe I can buy a house, get married.... In the United States, everybody who is somebody "gets a house." It's part of that same vague, universal dream everybody has for their future. Everyone has the same dream, of a big house with a car and a tree, a nice kitchen for Sunday breakfasts and family dinners... etc. I daydream about it, but now it's a little closer to reality. It's frightening. It seems slightly unreal to me too, so I am taking it day by day, and setting small weekly goals. Last night, when I was lying in bed, in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, it felt like I had dreamt up the last month, and it was actually Christmastime (there was snow on the ground, which created that feeling), and any minute I'd be waking up and opening my presents.

It's encouraging to be able to have some money to spend. I can donate to charity without having to feel like I'm begging my parents for it. I gave some money to the earthquake relief in Haiti, and that made me genuinely happier than spending it on myself. I go to concerts and shows now. It makes me feel like I'm a "patron of the arts," which was an aspiration of mine as a teenager. When I was young, I always pictured myself as one of those elegant, cultured, and beautiful people. Actually, I've discovered nowadays that only senior citizens and retirees generally go to those things. Oh well. Now as an adult, I'm enjoying myself, but I wonder if I wouldn't be just as happy with less going out, but more free time. It makes me a little fatalistic, like... "I never chose to grow up, it just kind of happened to me. What makes me happy hasn't changed, only the sort of things I'm expected to do about it."

At work, I'm to be helping people prepare their taxes, which in the U.S. are due April 15. That adds to the nature of the place where it feels more like I'm preparing for war. The hours are slowly getting longer and the work is beginning to pile up. (There's a saying that to cook a frog, you stick it in a pot of cold water and slowly warm the water up bit by bit, whereas if you try to throw it in hot water immediately, it hops out. I feel like the cold water frog.) I get the feeling that no matter how fast I learn, I'm not learning fast enough. I'm trying to not let that get to me. I can only do what I can and nothing more.

Another result of this seasonal nature is that I still perceive time like a student. I feel that these next few months are simply yet another semester, and that I'll be cramming for "finals." That's not the case, of course, but I try not to think too hard about the future. If I start to think about things like "am I going to do this for the rest of my life?" and "will this make me happy?" and "is this all there is to life?" then it gets a little overwhelming. I'm looking forward to Lent, actually. It seems like it will bring unifying purpose to my worries.

I had a dream about being in Hong Kong with you and Ming Tak and my Aunt. We were taking the cable car up the side of some green, forested mountains, and there was a garden filled with pavilions, small temples, pathways, and small arched bridges, all of gray polished stone. I asked about it, and somebody said, "Oh, it looks very old, but this place was built only a few years ago," and that's why I'd never been there. Even so, I thought it was quite a pleasant place.

That is what is happening to me. Sorry if it is long. I've been out of practice with writing letters.

Love,
Angie! (xiao bao: small bun)

I was trawling for info about the new The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie, and in the process have discovered that Narnia is pretty much totally ruined for me as a Grown-Up. Ever since I discovered the whole Christian Allegory thing. Not as fun anymore. This is why I think people should read as much as possible when they're kids, because adults just don't get excited about as much.

I remember when I was like 15, 16, and finishing some books that I'd started a few years earlier, or rereading things, and not enjoying them as much, and thinking to myself, "Oh, shit, shit I'm growing up!" Then I'd cram as much reading into my schedule as possible, reading in a passionate, shark-like frenzy (you know, pages and viscera flying everywhere- you've all seen the Discovery Channel) so that I'd finish all my campy juvenile fantasy adventures before I got too old to enjoy them.

Anyway, now I don't like Narnia so much because I keep finding more and more that could possibly offend me. I don't try to look, honest. It's self-defeating. I like enjoying my childhood. But bothersome things just... kind of appear, like those Magic Eye pop-ups I used to not be able to see either.

For example, today I was reading this thing about Susan (oh btw, this whole blog is about the Chronicles of Narnia so if you haven't read them for some Godforsaken reason, go do it) today, and how she didn't die at the end of the series because she needed to repent. I didn't think much about Susan when I read the books as a kid. Oh, she can't come back to Narnia because she acts like a selfish teenager. I didn't think much about it. Really, the only reaction I had was one of vindictive pleasure; I knew too many selfish teenagers even as a kid and was glad girls like them weren't allowed. You know, the mean girls who won't let you sit with them at lunch...

*sniff*...

ANYWAY. Thinking of it now, she seems like a terribly tragic character, not because of what's written about her, but what's not. Here you have this girl, who isn't let into heaven because she's concerned with material things. She's obsessed with makeup and clothes and parties and acting grown up. I feel sorry for her. I can see her in a dark room in England, night-dimmed in the dark lonely countryside, the little tendrils of emotion, of sin and subversion crawling out from her head and over her body, thoughts about boys and new sensations and Nazi bombs falling over this other Eden, turning from a girl to a woman alone, listening to the breathing of her brothers and sister, too young to understand, and how lonely that must have been. She wears lipstick and nylon, the book says, which is why she can't come to Narnia anymore.

Imagine this- Imagine you are a woman of power, gentle and beloved, respected and feared in turn. Imagine you are a queen. Imagine that armies ride out in your name, fleets sail under your banner and a strong west wind, barbarian princes hammer at the gates for your love. You have a splendid castle, a sumptuous table, servants, song, and sword that wait upon you. You are noble and you are wise, and by this your country flourishes in music, wonder and undimmed beauty.

One day, you are hunting in an unfamiliar forest, an aura of foreboding creeping on you like vines. You strain against its power, shying away from it, but your siblings urge you onward, so on you go. With a strange sensation twisting your body and a torrent of alien thoughts, your old life vanishes in an instant. You look down at your arms, not recognizing your body. You stare into a mirror, not recognizing your face. You are a queen no longer. Your country, your home, your people, your friends, your power, your wealth, are gone, and all you are is a scared, vulnerable girl in World War II England as the bombs keep falling, where there is no nobility and no wisdom, only despair and sacrifice. Unlike our memories, you have no photographs, no souvenirs, only what you can grasp in your memory as your memory fades.

When you see your parents again, over a middle-class, English dinner, they seem young to you, younger than you just were. You are powerless again. You, who once commanded a kingdom, must appease two foolish adults, strangers who you have not seen in decades. Initially, they humor you and your childish pretenses at royalty. They humor your pretenses at acting much older than you are, commanding and regal.

Peter takes the mantle of eldest; bossy, annoyingly responsible, and pragmatic. Lucy and Edmund enthusiastically scramble for the next adventure. Only you seem to feel some longing for your past life. Because you are older, your parents tell you that you have a responsibility to act mature, that you're setting a bad example by playing these frivolous games with your younger siblings. Your friends think you're mad. Honestly, how could you have aged to adulthood in a day? Honestly. And you think they're right... Anything like that is completely preposterous, there's no proof, it's all in your head. What silly games you played as a child.

And if what you saw with your own eyes, touched with your own hands, isn't here, never was, then why should you believe in what you can't see, can't touch, isn't here, never was?

Why should you believe in God?

You pretend to move on, socializing yourself to distraction, grasping at phantoms, holding court among your remaining subjects, cliquish girls and lovesick schoolboys. You remember your lost glory that no one else seems to remember, the games you played as a child. Once you were a queen (in those old imaginary games, of course). What are you now? A secretary, a housewife in Cold War Europe? Nothing you can do will rival what you once were.

You are broken. Your entire family died in a railway crash many years ago.