listen. listen to me so carefully right now. (if you're in the eclipse path/planning on viewing). please don't stare directly at the sun tomorrow. i am begging you - do not stare at it. if you got eclipse glasses off of amazon/other, please put them on in your house and make sure you can't see anything; if you can still see like regular sun glasses, they are not safe for eclipse viewing, you will burn your retinas, and we cannot fix that. eclipse glasses should be iso/ce certified, and aas (american astronomical society) approved. please make smart choices and protect your eyes. please.
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Hey adults: Why do you like being an adult? What do you like about your life?
A couple weeks ago I told the kids at my work that "Being an adult is pretty nice, actually," and they looked shocked, laughed incredulously, and told me I was the first person they'd ever heard say that
So clearly we adults need to talk about this way more often
The past few years have been hard for a lot of people, me included. Covid sucked. I lost three relatives and three pets in one year. Right after lockdown ended, I got badly injured, and ended up housebound for six months and (much more) disabled for two years, and that sucked too.
And you know what? Literally all of that was easier and better than being a teenager.
I like being an adult. I like my life. Even when it's hard, it's mine, and I am building to the best of my ability the a life that I want to live.
I talked about a lot of why being an adult is something worth looking forward to in my last post, so right now I'll simply say this:
I love actually knowing who I am now. I love that I learned and am learning what I want and need. I love that I have independence and autonomy and don't get treated like a kid. I love the fact that I'm the one who gets to decide want I want to do and what I need.
I also love that I'm learning to sew. I love that I've had pet rats, and next will have a pet cat. I love that I got top surgery. I love the way I've decorated my room. I love traveling to visit and crash and even just hang out and do work with my friends, when I can.
I love that I started reading good news every day, and that I actually have hope for the future, and that I started this blog and have been able to help give so many other people hope, too.
So, here's a call to action for my fellow adults: comment or reply or tag what you like about being an adult. What you love about your life.
Let's give some kids some reasons for hope.
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Is the big smile Donnie always wears when he is uncomfortable or around his siblings, is it a genuine smile or is it kind of like a mask hiding his true feelings?
Just curious because he has such a big smile and it’s cute but it seems like he smiles a lot for someone with lots of trama and it always happens around his siblings.
It’s kinda both I suppose. Sometimes he can’t really believe that he’s with his family and that they actually like him. So it’s easy to smile cause he’s so happy.
Other times it’s his go to coping mechanism. There wasn’t much he could do in the face of an angry Draxum, and crying always seemed to upset his father even more, so he’d try to grin and bear his punishments. Any time he’s upset, he thinks smiling is his best defense at hiding how he really feels.
It probably all started innocently enough and just became second nature.
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any advice for someone who's very bad at keeping friendships? people just up and vanish despite my best efforts, and I don't really know how to meet anyone else (dating apps are the worst/the pandemic ate my education/I work remote). late 20s are basically for feeling unlovable and ruined, I suppose.
Maintaining friendships---maintaining all relationships, particularly with people inconveniently not in the same apartment or office building---is hard. It just is. I've also found there's a steady attrition of freely-available friendship in your late twenties, as people move out of their crowded apartments, shack up, start having children and/or climbing the ladder into jobs that demand more of their attention and energy.
It is tough to be in your late 20s. You realize that you've taken for granted how full the world felt, with people and potential. You're not quite prepared for when you find yourself alone, and someone starts locking doors that you thought would be open forever.
Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to this. The only fix is: you are going to have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and do it all again. And again. And again.
"It" can take a lot of different forms. I know "join a group" is the most trite, annoying advice I can give but---do it. Find a group that you think you might be interested in joining, and join. Book club, running club, esoteric interest of your choice club; go on MeetUp and see what's in your area, volunteer for stuff. Ignore (for weeks, if not months) the fact that you feel awkward and out of place, and make it a commitment.
And then, when you've been part of a group---well, it's not so weird to ask if Lisa wants to go to a street festival with you. Not if you've packed lunches for the homeless with Lisa or laughed about a particular book with Lisa or been running alongside Lisa as you train for the upcoming 5k.
(Maybe Lisa will politely decline. Maybe Lisa will come to the street festival, but then has excuses for the next thing, and the next; she's too busy to make a good friend right now. And so---you will pick yourself up. You will do it all again.)
Or you can reach out to those people you've fallen out of touch with. "Hey, James, if you're in town let's grab lunch!" sounds very fake but it's not if you genuinely want to grab lunch with James. Ask Aiden if they're doing anything on Thursday, and would they like to come to bar trivia with you? If they're not in the same city, find some time for calls, or zoom---or hell, go old-fashioned and write letters.
If those ideas sound labor- and time-intensive, hard in the way that making yourself vulnerable always is......yes.
As I said, there's no easy route to this. Relationships take effort and someone has to go first; someone has to toss the ball and hope another human catches it. You cannot guarantee the catch, that's out of your power, so the only way to find people is to keep lobbing balls at everybody's heads and hope they have good reflexes.
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