July 16, 2026 • 24 mins
For many these days, adulting doesn't necessarily translate to feeling like an adult. Anney and Samantha chat about why that is, and the pros and cons.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome stuff. I never told your predicture if I heard.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You, And welcome to another edition of Happy Hour, Bitch
and Wine Session. I haven't had one in a while.
And before we start, Annie, are you slipping on anything?
(00:32):
I kind of told you right at the beginning of recording.
So did you have perchance coincidentally get wine?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I perchance coincidentally did get wine?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Perfect? I love it. Oh what kind got red rose?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's a red. It's a classic red.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Classic red, which matches. I'll say it in a minute.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
However, my drink of choice, and we're going to talk
about this in just a second, and why I'm doing it.
It's currently a mock tail. I guess you can say
of like a fruit smoothie that storebop fruit smoothie, a
little bit of ginger ell because I love good sparkly
and some creating. Because I've been reading that that's really
good and beneficial for women, and I do work out
(01:17):
four to five times a week as well as like
apparently it's.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Like great for brain functioning.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know any will come back to it later,
but so I'm like, you know what, let me just
try this so that is my mocktail for the day.
I have a feeling someone might be screaming at me
and be like, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It was bad. Tell me.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But before we start, y'all, because we are going to
talk a little bit about adulting.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
October second through the seventh, we are going on a
voyage on an adult's only voyage with virgin Voyages. Yes, y'all,
we're flying up to New York where we are leaving
to go to the bermudas coming back from the bermudas
back to New York. Yes, it's going to be an
amazing times.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Are you okay? You looked?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Ah, that's what you always do to me.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
You were so still you did I was like, oh
you frozen. Sorry. Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It is a five night, wonderful time where you will
have other stuff people with you, stuff you should know
and stuff they don't want you to know. Will be
joining as well, where we will be doing a live
podcasting session where you can come and see what we
look like when we're trying to scramble around, yes, with
(02:27):
our topics.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Actually, it'll be fun. It'll be fun.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And yeah, if you just hang out with us on
this amazing time of adulting and partying and having a
good old time. So if you are interested, I need
you to go to Virgin Voyages dot com slash stuff
and get that information, get those tickets, and come and
join us on this amazing voyage. But yeah, essentially we're
(02:51):
talking about adulting or once again, not feeling like an adult.
So I've been thinking a lot about our place in life,
how old I am, all the things, you know. I
joke about the fact that I have hit midlife technically,
but I've had a crisis since the beginning of the
quarter life mark.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So it's a never ending thing.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I am doing all of these new types of
not new but like supplemental things which are supposed to
help your body and all these things because my body
has been feeling not so great. I told Annie last
week we had gotten on Mike to record, and I
was like, well, I have a lot of king patch on.
I have taken different types of drugs. I'm sitting on
(03:33):
a pillow for so I haadic nerve as well as
the fact that I can't stand up straight.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So it's been one of those times where I'm having
to officially go to the doctor, and if you know
anything about us, Annie and I, we.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Don't do that. No, we don't like wait to the
very last possible.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh my god, everything's falling apart moments to actually go.
So for me, this is actually the second time I've
gone in the last month to see about my knee pain.
Because y'all know I have been doing if you've been
a listener and listening, I've been doing zuma teaching, and
it's really to the point that it feels like it's
really hard on my body, which is odd because it's
(04:14):
not like it's a strenuous, you know, like strength training
level of exercise.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I'm not doing CrossFit. That is not my thing.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So with all of that, it feels like I am
falling apart. Just a preview because we will be coming
back to talk about this soon. I have discovered that
maybe part of the issue is perimenopause, which we've kind
of previously talked about before, but I'm going to go
in depth in it. We're going to do some research
and come back to y'all because apparently that has a
(04:41):
lot to do with joint pain as well.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've heard of frozen shoulder again.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
We'll talk about that in later times, but like how
it really does affect and it's not phantom pains. It
really has to do with the fact that your estrogen
levels are dropping, so therefore your joints and your ligaments
maybe having a hard time keeping healthy essentially, So with
all of that, my body feels like I have come
to a point that yes, I'm obviously an adult, but
(05:07):
it is not aligning with my mindset. And I've come
back to that conversation of like, what is this adult thing?
Have I missed all of the markers and have come
to this point and it's too late, you know, that
level of like I can't enjoy the things I want
to enjoy because my body hurts. Unfortunately, from my parents
(05:28):
who are like who are seniors and who are both
retired and all of sudch they got to the point
that they were finally able to travel, but they can't
physically travel, and that really breaks my heart because I
know my mother had hoped to fly to England and
she's never been to the UK, she's never been to Europe,
and she really wanted to do this. This is a
dream of hers. A couple of years ago, she asked
(05:50):
me to start planning a trip to England. I was like, okay,
I'm down. And they even got there, I was like,
I will not do it until you get your passports
because I've never gotten a passport before.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And my mom was so her and my sister went.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And got their passport ready to go, but her body
is ailing so badly that she really just can't and
neither can my father, who never had those dreams.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But if he can't take care of himself, my mom
does it go back.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
To her any episode on codependency because it kind of
overlaps in this conversation, and with all of that, that
is my fear of that I'm going to miss out
on so many things. And don't get me wrong, I've
done I've already started traveling. I've been traveling, but the
thought of me not being able to do it again
is really really her full, like really painful to me.
(06:37):
But again, this kind of goes back into the blank.
But I'm not adult enough to be here right right,
So I was just like, is this the thing with
the millennials? I feel like my mother never said that
to me. I feel like my father, who both boomers,
have never had that conversation saying that they don't feel
like adults. I've heard them talking about feeling like they failed.
(06:57):
I've heard them talking about feeling like they missed out
or they didn't do enough for us as children or
whatever whatnot, but never that they weren't adults.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
They seem to fully align with.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
The idea that they have been adults since the beginning
of their marriage, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, So in my mind, I was like, is this
a millennial thing? Is this a gen Z millennial thing?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
That maybe we just don't get what this is? And
apparently a lot of people are saying it might it
actually might be a millennial in a gen Z thing.
And of course we kind of already hit on it previously.
It's because we haven't hit what the markers were typically
And I will come from our psychology today you know,
(07:41):
we love a good psychology Today article written by Michelle
Cork and she talks about for specific reasons why you
still may not feel like an adult, and one of
those things is the societal changes in milestones of adulthood,
and she writes this part of the mismatch is based
on societal ships. Young adults are getting married later, having
(08:02):
kids later, and often stay in graduate school well into
their thirties. The average age of first time home buyers
in nineteen eighty one was twenty nine, and by twenty
twenty two had risen to thirty six. Having kids later
also means pushing off grandparenthood. Becoming a parent at twenty
five it makes it fairly easy to be a grandparent
by fifty, whereas waiting until thirty five means you're seventy
(08:22):
by the time you might have your first grandchild. So
this kind of level in that conversation, which by the way,
I feel like thirty six is still.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Too young of an age. I don't think that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I think you're probably older for by especially today, Like
I wonder what the twenty twenty six number would be,
because I feel like it's getting higher. So this is
an article from twenty twenty three. I feel like the
shift is higher at this point because it's almost impossible
to buy a house at this point sell a house
either because it is not great. That's not great, the
(08:52):
interest rate is not great. So that is something that
that has happened later, So the mile markers have shifted.
So if that's the case, of course I'm not going
to fill like, because we haven't hit those marks once again,
that adult that my parents, our parents once upon of
time may have. Another thing is they said, is the
world looks and feels the same, which is an interesting perspective.
(09:14):
It says, the world that you see looks largely the
same as it looked when you were younger, and your
day to day experience of being grown up probably isn't
as different as your kid's self imagined it would be.
And I think a part of that is because we
had the big phenomenons of like the Internet in our
teenage years, and everything else just kind of seems like, eh, yeah,
of course type of thing, right, Like, I think because
(09:38):
we understand social media is not a new phenomenon. Nothing's big,
nothing's changed. We don't have the hoverboards, we don't have
the flying cars. If they promised us from Back to
the Future, where the hell are my cars?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
When was that set? Two thousand and five?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, like is ridiculous, and I'm very angry at Stevens Mark.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
We'll compose a letter.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Where is my jacket that gets go ahead and drives
my hair for me? If I were to fall into
a pond for some week that.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I want it. Where was my pizza that you can
just drop? So put it a.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Hydrate machine or that will fire me at any any
given time. Oh wait, we have that one.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
God, we do have that one. The change is outdated? Now,
where's my phone that does holograms?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
What what is this? We have metaglasses that fill other people.
We can't see nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, we didn't get the cool jacket or the hoverboard.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Anyway, I'm not I'm not angry, but I feel like
that kind of shift is different too, because we we
hit some of the biggest mile markers and we're coming
back to what our childhood. That's we're seeing the same wars,
we're seeing the same issues, we're seeing the same thing
with food. It's almost like we're going all the way
back to the early nineteen hundreds though, so that ain't great.
(11:17):
Another thing she talks about is your likes and preferences
haven't changed, And that's true, including what we wear and
the fact that that it has come back.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, like it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Does make me feel old, but it also gives me
a security of like, yeah, nothing changed.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, that's a good point. It's kind of odd because
sometimes I don't know much about fashion at all. But
I remember reading this article back in the day that
was about millennial fashion, and it was saying, there is
no millennial fashion. They just wear like skinny jeans and
(11:54):
like muted colors, and it'll be easily forgotten in the
timeline of fashion. Like well, seems to be sticking around,
even if people make fun of it while they wear it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, it is not going anywhere, whether it's the mom
jeans well, whether it's the thong hanging out like y'all
do you I'm like.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Oh, that's back, were showing thungbs again?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, okay, okay, you do you?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I never liked to begin with I am that person.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
It's interesting because one of the things that popped up
also was a Reddit because I was like, is it millennials?
Like I was trying to figure this out, like are
we just unusual? And I will say I'm an excellennial,
so I'm right on the cusp of the Gen X
crossover to millennials.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So I am that person.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
But in this there's a Reddit person all underscore water
I'm almost forty and still don't feel like an adult.
This is from a year ago, and they write I
have all the adult things husbands, kids, house, car pass
I just don't feel like an adult, feel like an impostor.
So technically they have hit all the mad markers, all
the societal markers, and they still don't feel like an adult. Again,
(13:08):
I come back to that the whole level of like
nothing's changed except for your responsibilities and you're trying to
fake it. And the response there was a lot in
this response. One of them was from Caleb two nine
five nine, and they write, you never feel like an adult,
and there's a reason for this. As a child, your
concept of adult is developed in terms of differences from you,
and that concept never really changes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
For the most part.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It starts to change when you're a Kids are adults,
but not completely adult. Always feels to some extent like
something external to yourself, which is interesting because going back
to that Psychology Today article, they say childhood impressions of
adults are one of the biggest reasons why you don't
feel like you ever grow up. This is what they write,
Perhaps the biggest reasons you don't feel like a real
(13:51):
grown up comes from the impressions you formed of adults
when you were child, which are largely unchanged. Greater size,
knowledge and authority gave this the grown ups around you
aura of mythic adulthood. They probably seem to have things together,
to be in control, to know the answers to life's
big question. In contrast, you know, you haven't figured out
the whole life thing, and so you're still waiting until
(14:11):
your inner experience matchester expectations of which adulthood would feel like. Now,
with that being said, I do feel like I do
understand some of those cheesy phrases that I'm like, I
even quoted it, like.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
The youth is wasted on the young. I get that now.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I get that now, like in that level of like
I wish I had some concepts and understanding of myself,
you know, and understanding that it's not as bad as
I thought it was once upon a time, you know
what I mean, Like that that era where everything's to
be falling apart. To be fair, everything is falling apart.
(14:51):
So I'm validated in that same way, and so for
the youth who are here, you're right. But how we
react to.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
It is different.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's different today.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I was like wearing a hat like that bicycle theory,
like you never forget how to how to ride a
bicycle after you learn, which I've never learned.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But anyway, it's that whole thing. I'm like, yeah, here
we are again.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Well let's pedal through it. We'll go get through this
crisis once again. And I will say, going back to
that Reddit thread, there were some really good lines there
and I wanted to share a few of them. Lauren wrote,
I'll be forty five this year, and one thing I've
never lost is that childish wonder. Just this past week,
I explored DC with my children and found wonder in
the Natural History Museum, capital building, and fireworks. I try
(15:35):
to be excited for my daughter, but also just excited
still like a kid, to see all of these things.
I feel bad for those adults who lose that wonder
for the world. If that's being an adult, leave me out.
And maybe that's what it is. Part of this is
me discovering new things on YouTube, like I want to
go to there, I want to ride a train.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
To the there.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And I get very excited about some things like that,
to the point that my partner Giggles was at me
because I get overly excited about things that aren't real,
or I get attached to this camping video that I
love with this cute dog.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I love that dog. Are you anyway?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
And there's just like new wonder So like I feel
like I'm discovering places that didn't know or understand, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So it's kind of like, oh okay.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
At the same time, this is another little bit Sotbird
three wrote. Mentally, I'm a teenager. Physically I'm sixty plus.
Reality is I'm forty nine. I have to remind myself
weakly that I'm not young anymore. Usually, right before I
attempt to do something stupid, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Because it's true in my mind I can still do
these things.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
In reality, my body's like you try it, you break,
see what happens?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Try me? Yeah, go ahead. You can't stand up like that?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No more? Fair enough, fair enough, I will say, I
don't do a lot of stupid things. I didn't do
it as a kid either, so I feel like that's
a bit different.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Maybe that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I've always been a safe person, like I don't do
too much risking. So therefore, as an adult who also
was like a safe person.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That I'm like, eh, no, thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
There's one from Glittering Light six nine, and I feel
like they made a point that said, I think this
is a very American sentiment. I have never heard it
anywhere else. I wonder if it has to do with
media you had growing up. I heard a lot in
my work in relation to clothing like things are too
grown up or too old looking. But even for people
(17:25):
in their fifties and older, and only American clients, my
foreign clients, which is most of them, are not averse
looking grown up at all. If they are younger, they
will tend to use a word classy or sophisticated instead
of old lady or too grown up. Maybe it has
to do with the youth culture. Whereas praise is being young,
it makes being an adult look worse. I don't know.
I'm forty one and feel like an adult. I feel
(17:46):
like an adult when I was no longer in school
and working full time. When I think of opposite of adult,
I think of a child or teenager. Children and teens
are usually dependent with no freedom. They aren't operating in
the adult world much at all. If you don't feel
like that, then however you feel, is what an adult
feels like. I wonder if it's like cousin of internal agism,
or maybe it's a trauma thing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I had a really hard childhood. Lol.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Feeling freedom and autonomy is amazing, and that feels like
being an adult to me.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And I think that's something to be said about what
she said.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Internal agism the stereotype which often is a very bad one.
I'm not agreeing with this, but that if you're aging,
you're dying in decrepit and are no longer in use.
We've talked about this when retirement ages and people feeling
like they're being dismissed at a certain point.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Maybe this is what it is. Maybe it is a.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Part of the internal agism that we haven't talked about
enough in my expectation of being an adult, so maybe
there's a small fear of being that adult because being
an adult means you're ending coming to.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
The end of life, which is a horrible way to
look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You kind of move out of that junior section into
the adult section.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I know, I could do the ladies.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Excuse me, Yes, you.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Know what I'm talking about this section. Yes, actually I
had a shop on floor.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I do actually wonder too and listeners from other countries,
especially European countries, as this commenter.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Was European I think they might have been Asian Blichi Okayichi.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I just know that it's not always the case
that in other countries, like it is in America, that
you get a job young, like it's more expected that
you do your studies and that's that's your focus. So
I wonder if that also kind of blurs the line
(19:43):
of you get a job so young, it doesn't necessarily
feel like you're an adult at that point, but that
is kind of a marker of adulthood. I do also
think like media plays into it. But I think that
was a next one point from the Psychology Today article
about when you're a kid, your parents or whoever is
(20:07):
looking after you, hopefully you think that they know everything,
but when you get older, you don't ever reach that point.
So I personally have found that that's something that gets
in the way of me feeling like an adult because
I always thought there's a point where you get settled
(20:28):
and you know everything and your life makes sense, and
I've never reached that point. But as you age, you
realize your parents also didn't know everything, and we're struggling
to It just doesn't look the same.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
There's another comment because it kind of come back into
that trauma imposter syndrome thing talks about. I'm not sure
this is from Blueberry Rule. They wrote, I'm not sure
how deep that imposter syndrome goes for you, but it
could many times be a result of the unprocessed trauma
that keeps a person stuck in a certain middle age
no matter how they are really what else is going
(21:07):
around around them? Obviously, when I'm describing this deep and
vay disturbing situation for a person feeling stuck, and I
think that could be a part of the conversation for
some others.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We talked about that with like hobbies.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
And the level of like need for fictional relationships or
that depth of love or like k pop stands. This
could have something to do with like being stuck, not
necessarily trauma, but actually being able to enjoy something to
the full at this age and retreating into it. That's
many people might call childish. That's all we could go
(21:39):
back to that.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But that level.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And then there was one more comment that I really
liked alternative lie nine four eighty six. I've got almost
twenty years on you, and I'm definitely not an adult.
I'm an extraordinarily responsible kid. And I really like that level,
like like being we are adult, I don't know how responsible,
but like if we've come to the point of realizing, oh, yeah,
we have to figure this thing out, whether it's the bill,
whether it's laundry, whether it's keeping house together and being
(22:03):
clean when a company comes over, that's what I do,
taking care of your pets, or even if you do
have kids, taking care of your kids. But there's the
level of like being responsible at the same time still
feeling like a child. And I love that, Like I'm
an extraordinarily responsible kid because I got adult money, I've
got adult responsibilities, but I still don't feel like that child.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And yeah, I get that too.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I don't know, maybe it's not a bad thing that
we don't feel that way. I think this again, and
then coming back to like if she if this writer
was Asian, the one they're talking about, you know, maybe
it's a cultural thing. Maybe because like in Asian cultures
you do respect adults and to a certain level, to
the point that they cannot be wrong, almost like you
cannot correct them. That's not a thing, which is like
(22:46):
that's the whole different spectrum that we could come back
to but in that level, Like, so being an adult
finally puts you in a place of like standing.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, respectability to a certain level.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
So maybe that's why when you get to that point
you do feel like an adult. I don't know, but
it's okay, we're figuring this thing out. I think a
lot of us understand those and I think it does
have again, like the environmental situations that we talked about
our expectations and understanding as children to today, like what
we saw then as adulthood and not reaching that because
(23:16):
it wasn't the same.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
It isn't the.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Same the expectation of being not having friends, you just
concentrate on family. Maybe one of those reasons is that
I still hang out with my friends sometimes, but I
have plenty of them that I can go be like
let's go hang out and do beers, which feels very
college age.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. Yeah, and I was thinking about that we've discussed before.
But I still I have a lot of hobbies that
I would consider childish, like playing video games or even
cosplay that. Yeah, I don't think when I think about
my mom, she didn't have time to do that. It's
not necessarily that she wouldn't have done something like that,
(23:56):
but she didn't have time to do it. So there's
an element of that as well, of me feeling that
it's childish, but maybe she feels like I wish I
could have done that.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, there's a lot. Tell us your
thoughts on this, because I know this is a big
conversation for many of us.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Please do tell us your thoughts. We would love to
hear from you. You can email us at Hello at
Stuffmanenever Told You dot com. You can find us on
blue Sky at mom Stuff Podcast, on Instagram and TikTok
at the Stuff I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
We have some merchandise at comp hero and we have
a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Thanks as always to our super producer Rima and are
O servative Bruce Maya. Thank you, and thanks to you
(24:37):
for listening Stuff I Never Told You respection of by
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome stuff. I never told your predicture if I heard.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You, And welcome to another edition of Happy Hour, Bitch
and Wine Session. I haven't had one in a while.
And before we start, Annie, are you slipping on anything?
(00:32):
I kind of told you right at the beginning of recording.
So did you have perchance coincidentally get wine?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I perchance coincidentally did get wine?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Perfect? I love it. Oh what kind got red rose?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's a red. It's a classic red.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Classic red, which matches. I'll say it in a minute.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
However, my drink of choice, and we're going to talk
about this in just a second, and why I'm doing it.
It's currently a mock tail. I guess you can say
of like a fruit smoothie that storebop fruit smoothie, a
little bit of ginger ell because I love good sparkly
and some creating. Because I've been reading that that's really
good and beneficial for women, and I do work out
(01:17):
four to five times a week as well as like
apparently it's.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Like great for brain functioning.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know any will come back to it later,
but so I'm like, you know what, let me just
try this so that is my mocktail for the day.
I have a feeling someone might be screaming at me
and be like, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It was bad. Tell me.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But before we start, y'all, because we are going to
talk a little bit about adulting.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
October second through the seventh, we are going on a
voyage on an adult's only voyage with virgin Voyages. Yes, y'all,
we're flying up to New York where we are leaving
to go to the bermudas coming back from the bermudas
back to New York. Yes, it's going to be an
amazing times.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Are you okay? You looked?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Ah, that's what you always do to me.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
You were so still you did I was like, oh
you frozen. Sorry. Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It is a five night, wonderful time where you will
have other stuff people with you, stuff you should know
and stuff they don't want you to know. Will be
joining as well, where we will be doing a live
podcasting session where you can come and see what we
look like when we're trying to scramble around, yes, with
(02:27):
our topics.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Actually, it'll be fun. It'll be fun.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And yeah, if you just hang out with us on
this amazing time of adulting and partying and having a
good old time. So if you are interested, I need
you to go to Virgin Voyages dot com slash stuff
and get that information, get those tickets, and come and
join us on this amazing voyage. But yeah, essentially we're
(02:51):
talking about adulting or once again, not feeling like an adult.
So I've been thinking a lot about our place in life,
how old I am, all the things, you know. I
joke about the fact that I have hit midlife technically,
but I've had a crisis since the beginning of the
quarter life mark.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So it's a never ending thing.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I am doing all of these new types of
not new but like supplemental things which are supposed to
help your body and all these things because my body
has been feeling not so great. I told Annie last
week we had gotten on Mike to record, and I
was like, well, I have a lot of king patch on.
I have taken different types of drugs. I'm sitting on
(03:33):
a pillow for so I haadic nerve as well as
the fact that I can't stand up straight.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So it's been one of those times where I'm having
to officially go to the doctor, and if you know
anything about us, Annie and I, we.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Don't do that. No, we don't like wait to the
very last possible.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh my god, everything's falling apart moments to actually go.
So for me, this is actually the second time I've
gone in the last month to see about my knee pain.
Because y'all know I have been doing if you've been
a listener and listening, I've been doing zuma teaching, and
it's really to the point that it feels like it's
really hard on my body, which is odd because it's
(04:14):
not like it's a strenuous, you know, like strength training
level of exercise.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I'm not doing CrossFit. That is not my thing.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So with all of that, it feels like I am
falling apart. Just a preview because we will be coming
back to talk about this soon. I have discovered that
maybe part of the issue is perimenopause, which we've kind
of previously talked about before, but I'm going to go
in depth in it. We're going to do some research
and come back to y'all because apparently that has a
(04:41):
lot to do with joint pain as well.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've heard of frozen shoulder again.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
We'll talk about that in later times, but like how
it really does affect and it's not phantom pains. It
really has to do with the fact that your estrogen
levels are dropping, so therefore your joints and your ligaments
maybe having a hard time keeping healthy essentially, So with
all of that, my body feels like I have come
to a point that yes, I'm obviously an adult, but
(05:07):
it is not aligning with my mindset. And I've come
back to that conversation of like, what is this adult thing?
Have I missed all of the markers and have come
to this point and it's too late, you know, that
level of like I can't enjoy the things I want
to enjoy because my body hurts. Unfortunately, from my parents
(05:28):
who are like who are seniors and who are both
retired and all of sudch they got to the point
that they were finally able to travel, but they can't
physically travel, and that really breaks my heart because I
know my mother had hoped to fly to England and
she's never been to the UK, she's never been to Europe,
and she really wanted to do this. This is a
dream of hers. A couple of years ago, she asked
(05:50):
me to start planning a trip to England. I was like, okay,
I'm down. And they even got there, I was like,
I will not do it until you get your passports
because I've never gotten a passport before.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And my mom was so her and my sister went.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And got their passport ready to go, but her body
is ailing so badly that she really just can't and
neither can my father, who never had those dreams.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But if he can't take care of himself, my mom
does it go back.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
To her any episode on codependency because it kind of
overlaps in this conversation, and with all of that, that
is my fear of that I'm going to miss out
on so many things. And don't get me wrong, I've
done I've already started traveling. I've been traveling, but the
thought of me not being able to do it again
is really really her full, like really painful to me.
(06:37):
But again, this kind of goes back into the blank.
But I'm not adult enough to be here right right,
So I was just like, is this the thing with
the millennials? I feel like my mother never said that
to me. I feel like my father, who both boomers,
have never had that conversation saying that they don't feel
like adults. I've heard them talking about feeling like they failed.
(06:57):
I've heard them talking about feeling like they missed out
or they didn't do enough for us as children or
whatever whatnot, but never that they weren't adults.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
They seem to fully align with.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
The idea that they have been adults since the beginning
of their marriage, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, So in my mind, I was like, is this
a millennial thing? Is this a gen Z millennial thing?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
That maybe we just don't get what this is? And
apparently a lot of people are saying it might it
actually might be a millennial in a gen Z thing.
And of course we kind of already hit on it previously.
It's because we haven't hit what the markers were typically
And I will come from our psychology today you know,
(07:41):
we love a good psychology Today article written by Michelle
Cork and she talks about for specific reasons why you
still may not feel like an adult, and one of
those things is the societal changes in milestones of adulthood,
and she writes this part of the mismatch is based
on societal ships. Young adults are getting married later, having
(08:02):
kids later, and often stay in graduate school well into
their thirties. The average age of first time home buyers
in nineteen eighty one was twenty nine, and by twenty
twenty two had risen to thirty six. Having kids later
also means pushing off grandparenthood. Becoming a parent at twenty
five it makes it fairly easy to be a grandparent
by fifty, whereas waiting until thirty five means you're seventy
(08:22):
by the time you might have your first grandchild. So
this kind of level in that conversation, which by the way,
I feel like thirty six is still.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Too young of an age. I don't think that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I think you're probably older for by especially today, Like
I wonder what the twenty twenty six number would be,
because I feel like it's getting higher. So this is
an article from twenty twenty three. I feel like the
shift is higher at this point because it's almost impossible
to buy a house at this point sell a house
either because it is not great. That's not great, the
(08:52):
interest rate is not great. So that is something that
that has happened later, So the mile markers have shifted.
So if that's the case, of course I'm not going
to fill like, because we haven't hit those marks once again,
that adult that my parents, our parents once upon of
time may have. Another thing is they said, is the
world looks and feels the same, which is an interesting perspective.
(09:14):
It says, the world that you see looks largely the
same as it looked when you were younger, and your
day to day experience of being grown up probably isn't
as different as your kid's self imagined it would be.
And I think a part of that is because we
had the big phenomenons of like the Internet in our
teenage years, and everything else just kind of seems like, eh, yeah,
of course type of thing, right, Like, I think because
(09:38):
we understand social media is not a new phenomenon. Nothing's big,
nothing's changed. We don't have the hoverboards, we don't have
the flying cars. If they promised us from Back to
the Future, where the hell are my cars?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
When was that set? Two thousand and five?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, like is ridiculous, and I'm very angry at Stevens Mark.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
We'll compose a letter.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Where is my jacket that gets go ahead and drives
my hair for me? If I were to fall into
a pond for some week that.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I want it. Where was my pizza that you can
just drop? So put it a.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Hydrate machine or that will fire me at any any
given time. Oh wait, we have that one.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
God, we do have that one. The change is outdated? Now,
where's my phone that does holograms?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
What what is this? We have metaglasses that fill other people.
We can't see nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, we didn't get the cool jacket or the hoverboard.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Anyway, I'm not I'm not angry, but I feel like
that kind of shift is different too, because we we
hit some of the biggest mile markers and we're coming
back to what our childhood. That's we're seeing the same wars,
we're seeing the same issues, we're seeing the same thing
with food. It's almost like we're going all the way
back to the early nineteen hundreds though, so that ain't great.
(11:17):
Another thing she talks about is your likes and preferences
haven't changed, And that's true, including what we wear and
the fact that that it has come back.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, like it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Does make me feel old, but it also gives me
a security of like, yeah, nothing changed.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, that's a good point. It's kind of odd because
sometimes I don't know much about fashion at all. But
I remember reading this article back in the day that
was about millennial fashion, and it was saying, there is
no millennial fashion. They just wear like skinny jeans and
(11:54):
like muted colors, and it'll be easily forgotten in the
timeline of fashion. Like well, seems to be sticking around,
even if people make fun of it while they wear it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, it is not going anywhere, whether it's the mom
jeans well, whether it's the thong hanging out like y'all
do you I'm like.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Oh, that's back, were showing thungbs again?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, okay, okay, you do you?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I never liked to begin with I am that person.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
It's interesting because one of the things that popped up
also was a Reddit because I was like, is it millennials?
Like I was trying to figure this out, like are
we just unusual? And I will say I'm an excellennial,
so I'm right on the cusp of the Gen X
crossover to millennials.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So I am that person.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
But in this there's a Reddit person all underscore water
I'm almost forty and still don't feel like an adult.
This is from a year ago, and they write I
have all the adult things husbands, kids, house, car pass
I just don't feel like an adult, feel like an impostor.
So technically they have hit all the mad markers, all
the societal markers, and they still don't feel like an adult. Again,
(13:08):
I come back to that the whole level of like
nothing's changed except for your responsibilities and you're trying to
fake it. And the response there was a lot in
this response. One of them was from Caleb two nine
five nine, and they write, you never feel like an adult,
and there's a reason for this. As a child, your
concept of adult is developed in terms of differences from you,
and that concept never really changes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
For the most part.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It starts to change when you're a Kids are adults,
but not completely adult. Always feels to some extent like
something external to yourself, which is interesting because going back
to that Psychology Today article, they say childhood impressions of
adults are one of the biggest reasons why you don't
feel like you ever grow up. This is what they write,
Perhaps the biggest reasons you don't feel like a real
(13:51):
grown up comes from the impressions you formed of adults
when you were child, which are largely unchanged. Greater size,
knowledge and authority gave this the grown ups around you
aura of mythic adulthood. They probably seem to have things together,
to be in control, to know the answers to life's
big question. In contrast, you know, you haven't figured out
the whole life thing, and so you're still waiting until
(14:11):
your inner experience matchester expectations of which adulthood would feel like. Now,
with that being said, I do feel like I do
understand some of those cheesy phrases that I'm like, I
even quoted it, like.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
The youth is wasted on the young. I get that now.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I get that now, like in that level of like
I wish I had some concepts and understanding of myself,
you know, and understanding that it's not as bad as
I thought it was once upon a time, you know
what I mean, Like that that era where everything's to
be falling apart. To be fair, everything is falling apart.
(14:51):
So I'm validated in that same way, and so for
the youth who are here, you're right. But how we
react to.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
It is different.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's different today.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I was like wearing a hat like that bicycle theory,
like you never forget how to how to ride a
bicycle after you learn, which I've never learned.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But anyway, it's that whole thing. I'm like, yeah, here
we are again.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Well let's pedal through it. We'll go get through this
crisis once again. And I will say, going back to
that Reddit thread, there were some really good lines there
and I wanted to share a few of them. Lauren wrote,
I'll be forty five this year, and one thing I've
never lost is that childish wonder. Just this past week,
I explored DC with my children and found wonder in
the Natural History Museum, capital building, and fireworks. I try
(15:35):
to be excited for my daughter, but also just excited
still like a kid, to see all of these things.
I feel bad for those adults who lose that wonder
for the world. If that's being an adult, leave me out.
And maybe that's what it is. Part of this is
me discovering new things on YouTube, like I want to
go to there, I want to ride a train.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
To the there.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And I get very excited about some things like that,
to the point that my partner Giggles was at me
because I get overly excited about things that aren't real,
or I get attached to this camping video that I
love with this cute dog.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I love that dog. Are you anyway?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
And there's just like new wonder So like I feel
like I'm discovering places that didn't know or understand, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So it's kind of like, oh okay.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
At the same time, this is another little bit Sotbird
three wrote. Mentally, I'm a teenager. Physically I'm sixty plus.
Reality is I'm forty nine. I have to remind myself
weakly that I'm not young anymore. Usually, right before I
attempt to do something stupid, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Because it's true in my mind I can still do
these things.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
In reality, my body's like you try it, you break,
see what happens?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Try me? Yeah, go ahead. You can't stand up like that?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No more? Fair enough, fair enough, I will say, I
don't do a lot of stupid things. I didn't do
it as a kid either, so I feel like that's
a bit different.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Maybe that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I've always been a safe person, like I don't do
too much risking. So therefore, as an adult who also
was like a safe person.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That I'm like, eh, no, thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
There's one from Glittering Light six nine, and I feel
like they made a point that said, I think this
is a very American sentiment. I have never heard it
anywhere else. I wonder if it has to do with
media you had growing up. I heard a lot in
my work in relation to clothing like things are too
grown up or too old looking. But even for people
(17:25):
in their fifties and older, and only American clients, my
foreign clients, which is most of them, are not averse
looking grown up at all. If they are younger, they
will tend to use a word classy or sophisticated instead
of old lady or too grown up. Maybe it has
to do with the youth culture. Whereas praise is being young,
it makes being an adult look worse. I don't know.
I'm forty one and feel like an adult. I feel
(17:46):
like an adult when I was no longer in school
and working full time. When I think of opposite of adult,
I think of a child or teenager. Children and teens
are usually dependent with no freedom. They aren't operating in
the adult world much at all. If you don't feel
like that, then however you feel, is what an adult
feels like. I wonder if it's like cousin of internal agism,
or maybe it's a trauma thing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I had a really hard childhood. Lol.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Feeling freedom and autonomy is amazing, and that feels like
being an adult to me.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And I think that's something to be said about what
she said.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Internal agism the stereotype which often is a very bad one.
I'm not agreeing with this, but that if you're aging,
you're dying in decrepit and are no longer in use.
We've talked about this when retirement ages and people feeling
like they're being dismissed at a certain point.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Maybe this is what it is. Maybe it is a.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Part of the internal agism that we haven't talked about
enough in my expectation of being an adult, so maybe
there's a small fear of being that adult because being
an adult means you're ending coming to.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
The end of life, which is a horrible way to
look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You kind of move out of that junior section into
the adult section.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I know, I could do the ladies.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Excuse me, Yes, you.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Know what I'm talking about this section. Yes, actually I
had a shop on floor.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I do actually wonder too and listeners from other countries,
especially European countries, as this commenter.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Was European I think they might have been Asian Blichi Okayichi.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I just know that it's not always the case
that in other countries, like it is in America, that
you get a job young, like it's more expected that
you do your studies and that's that's your focus. So
I wonder if that also kind of blurs the line
(19:43):
of you get a job so young, it doesn't necessarily
feel like you're an adult at that point, but that
is kind of a marker of adulthood. I do also
think like media plays into it. But I think that
was a next one point from the Psychology Today article
about when you're a kid, your parents or whoever is
(20:07):
looking after you, hopefully you think that they know everything,
but when you get older, you don't ever reach that point.
So I personally have found that that's something that gets
in the way of me feeling like an adult because
I always thought there's a point where you get settled
(20:28):
and you know everything and your life makes sense, and
I've never reached that point. But as you age, you
realize your parents also didn't know everything, and we're struggling
to It just doesn't look the same.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
There's another comment because it kind of come back into
that trauma imposter syndrome thing talks about. I'm not sure
this is from Blueberry Rule. They wrote, I'm not sure
how deep that imposter syndrome goes for you, but it
could many times be a result of the unprocessed trauma
that keeps a person stuck in a certain middle age
no matter how they are really what else is going
(21:07):
around around them? Obviously, when I'm describing this deep and
vay disturbing situation for a person feeling stuck, and I
think that could be a part of the conversation for
some others.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We talked about that with like hobbies.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
And the level of like need for fictional relationships or
that depth of love or like k pop stands. This
could have something to do with like being stuck, not
necessarily trauma, but actually being able to enjoy something to
the full at this age and retreating into it. That's
many people might call childish. That's all we could go
(21:39):
back to that.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But that level.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And then there was one more comment that I really
liked alternative lie nine four eighty six. I've got almost
twenty years on you, and I'm definitely not an adult.
I'm an extraordinarily responsible kid. And I really like that level,
like like being we are adult, I don't know how responsible,
but like if we've come to the point of realizing, oh, yeah,
we have to figure this thing out, whether it's the bill,
whether it's laundry, whether it's keeping house together and being
(22:03):
clean when a company comes over, that's what I do,
taking care of your pets, or even if you do
have kids, taking care of your kids. But there's the
level of like being responsible at the same time still
feeling like a child. And I love that, Like I'm
an extraordinarily responsible kid because I got adult money, I've
got adult responsibilities, but I still don't feel like that child.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And yeah, I get that too.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I don't know, maybe it's not a bad thing that
we don't feel that way. I think this again, and
then coming back to like if she if this writer
was Asian, the one they're talking about, you know, maybe
it's a cultural thing. Maybe because like in Asian cultures
you do respect adults and to a certain level, to
the point that they cannot be wrong, almost like you
cannot correct them. That's not a thing, which is like
(22:46):
that's the whole different spectrum that we could come back
to but in that level, Like, so being an adult
finally puts you in a place of like standing.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, respectability to a certain level.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
So maybe that's why when you get to that point
you do feel like an adult. I don't know, but
it's okay, we're figuring this thing out. I think a
lot of us understand those and I think it does
have again, like the environmental situations that we talked about
our expectations and understanding as children to today, like what
we saw then as adulthood and not reaching that because
(23:16):
it wasn't the same.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
It isn't the.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Same the expectation of being not having friends, you just
concentrate on family. Maybe one of those reasons is that
I still hang out with my friends sometimes, but I
have plenty of them that I can go be like
let's go hang out and do beers, which feels very
college age.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. Yeah, and I was thinking about that we've discussed before.
But I still I have a lot of hobbies that
I would consider childish, like playing video games or even
cosplay that. Yeah, I don't think when I think about
my mom, she didn't have time to do that. It's
not necessarily that she wouldn't have done something like that,
(23:56):
but she didn't have time to do it. So there's
an element of that as well, of me feeling that
it's childish, but maybe she feels like I wish I
could have done that.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, there's a lot. Tell us your
thoughts on this, because I know this is a big
conversation for many of us.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Please do tell us your thoughts. We would love to
hear from you. You can email us at Hello at
Stuffmanenever Told You dot com. You can find us on
blue Sky at mom Stuff Podcast, on Instagram and TikTok
at the Stuff I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
We have some merchandise at comp hero and we have
a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Thanks as always to our super producer Rima and are
O servative Bruce Maya. Thank you, and thanks to you
(24:37):
for listening Stuff I Never Told You respection of by
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
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Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com