This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A friend of mine was just complaining about how she was “adulting hard” this year — spending multiple thousands of dollars on new tires for the cars and new shutters for the house, while saving money for her kid’s braces and some siding projects. I mean: ouch.

It made me think about the recent article in The Cut, Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?, which was mostly about feeling like a fake amongst other parents, but had so many good turns of phrases it’s stuck in my head — is adulthood a mirage? Are we all just cosplaying adulthood, wearing “grownup costumes” as one person put it?

I also saw a great TikTok recently that was really just a lady drinking wine as cute music plays, while this message stays on the screen: “me thinking about how the girlies born in 1995 are now 28 and how I was born in 1982 and I am also 28.”

YES!

All of this! Times a thousand!

I’ve seen a lot of thinkpieces (fine, probably TikToks) about how GenX is doing adulthood differently, with a lot being written about how J.Lo is the same age now as Rue McClanahan when she played Blanche in The Golden Girls.

So this is all a weird way of asking: readers, do you feel like actual adults, or like you’re still in some earlier period of your life (à la your late-20s or early 30s)? What are the biggest things that make you feel younger than you are — and what are the biggest things that, like my friend, make you feel like you’re adulting hard?

Stock photo via Pexels / Диана Дунаева.