July 2024 Musings In the past month, I finally got my hands on footage of an old interview I did in 2019. As I watched it, I couldn’t help but appreciate that a lot of my answers then were consistent with what I would say today; although I wish I had dressed up and seemed cheerful, my zeal and hope were by far stronger than current day and that came through. I plan on sharing that interview later. But for now, I want to write on what it inspired. Watching the video made me appreciate my younger self, and – as I often say- I owe all that I am to the zeal of younger Monique. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m nearing 35, perhaps it’s the fact that I’m coming out of a protracted season of depression; either way, I often find myself thinking of how adulting turned out to be a ‘scam’. I know we say it often, heck we now have an anthem on the scam of adulting courtesy of a lovely Nigerian artist: Yet, I don’t think we really think we captured what made adulting a scam as we should in order to address the unfulfilment and unhappiness we feel. The phrase “adulting ruins things” is often used humorously or ironically to express the idea that the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood can take the fun out of life or make simple pleasures more complicated. We say “Adulting na scam” at Christmas, referring to how we no longer feel ‘merry’ given that we’re now the ones in charge of performing tasks and responsibilities to ensure the holiday goes smoothly. The suya is no longer sweet when you’re the one paying bills, and having a full house is no longer fun when you’re the one to juggle pick-ups and drop-offs along with other grown-up obligations. This is true, but honestly, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I feel like Adulting being a scam is less about how responsibilities are now on us, and more about how those things have taken the place of things we felt were frivolous but actually necessary for balance and sustaining life. Mind you, I say this as someone who has fewer responsibilities than many in my circle and still feels like, ‘Nah, this is a scam’ on the regular. Consider your life now and how things were when you were a kid. What major differences come up for you? If you focus only on financial aspects, you’ll find that there are as many pros as cons: Yes, as an adult, you now have to decide what everyone eats for every meal, but also, YOU KNOW GET TO DECIDE WHAT EVERYONE EATS for every meal! As a kid, you craved that power. So what made it become a burden? The neverendingness, therein lies the scam. Adulting ruins things because we don’t get to pass the baton—especially if we’re doing life alone; and with communalism dying by the day, that is the case for most of us. We wanted to help in the kitchen as kids; toddlers are excited over something to do; I’ve watched my nieces fight over who got to carry my bag inside. It’s not just that they knew they would get praised for it (no one is praising you for the mundane as an adult), but it’s also that they opt for it, it’s still an option, not a duty. Adulting makes it a duty and saps the fun out of it. These are just some generic examples. I realize I must unlearn a lot of the ways adulting has changed me and ruined things. Adulting ruined my reading. I wrote about how I fell in love with reading (see here) and how words that others had written provided worlds for me to escape to. Reading provided comfort and peace and grew my empathy as well as my vocabulary. As much as I could blame social media for becoming my distraction in place of the world of fiction, that’s not quite true. It began with the ‘adult notion’ that my reading was only valuable if I was reading a certain kind of literature. The more I fraternized with other ‘adults’ in certain spaces, it became ‘childish’ to be re-reading the Romance and fantasy novels that made me fall for writing that soothed. I was challenged to read self-help books, ‘important’ books, ‘profound’ books. And the more I read what I felt like I should be reading as an adult, the more reading no longer appealed. I can’t say I was pressured; it’s more like a tacit societal expectation of what a successful adult does- reads books by successful people, books that ‘add’ to them. Not fiction. Not cartoons. Somehow that is less. I’m beginning to unlearn that. I like this quote that I came across on IG recently and feel it captures what I needed to hear when I started giving away my Nora Roberts to replace with ‘important books’. Adulting ruined my writing. One of the things I beat myself up about regularly is the fact that I don’t write as much as I know I should, as much as I know I could. I’ve shared in a previous blog what caused this. Yet, even knowing why I’m struggling with doing what I should/could, I still feel guilt regularly. The guilt of not living up to my potential, the guilt of not using a talent I’ve been gifted, etc., especially knowing that writing is as much a part of my employment/sustenance as it is my mode of self-realization, expression and art. I often think of the saying “if you don’t use it, you’ll use it” with fear, “Will I lose this gift eventually? But then I overthink. During a recent bout of guilt-infused overthinking about how I am ‘failing’ at writing even the things that are obviously ‘for me’ such as this blog. I took a step back to reflect on my whys: Q. Why did you