My darling reader, this past week I turned 25 years old.

Did any of you ever play “grown up” when you were little? You’d walk around and pretend a bench was your car, your American Girl Dolls were your kids, and your blankets were ball gowns you wore to the fancy parties to which all adults surely get invited? No? Just me? ………awesome. Well I used to pretend I was all grown up and one day, about a week before my birthday, it hit me that I am actually considered a grown up now. Y’all I was not ready to be a grown up. I am STILL not ready to be a grown up. WHY ON EARTH DID WE SIGN UP FOR THIS!?!?!?!? Yes, having a bank account, my adorable bunny rabbit, and my own apartment are all pretty amazing, but NO ONE told that bright-eyed 7 year old playing pretend that all of those things came with student loans, bills, the crushing pressure of meeting and exceeding expectations, and more bills. Also, I feel as though I was deceived as to how many fancy parties adults get to attend…but we’ll save that topic for another day.

It was that moment when you are looking for the adult in the room only to realize that you ARE the adult in the room and you immediately put down your bowl of Fruit Loops and begin frantically searching for an adultier adult….

I was really not ready to be in charge of my own life, but then I realized that (humble brag alert) I’m actually kinda killing it lately.

Dear reader, I am not an overtly proud or arrogant person so it took about 3 days of a slow burn freak out to realize what I am about to relay to you: I have my life put together and I put it together all on my own. I am financially independent, I have never defaulted on a student loan payment, I can afford a nice apartment, I have a great job that I love, I am in a healthy long-term relationship (FINALLY, more on that later my friends….), I have the world’s most adorable rabbit, and I am living in the city I have wanted to live in since I was 5 (I saw Gene Kelly & Frank Sinatra in “On the Town” and decided I wanted to live where they were).

It took me three days and a couple pep talks from my mom, boyfriend, and a co-worker, to realize that I am not failing just because my life may not be what I imagined when I was playing pretend at age 7. No I am not on Broadway, no I am not a movie star, no I am not living in a gorgeous townhouse in SoHo (I clearly had VERY high expectations as a child), but I actually love the life I have built for myself.

It took me a long time to come to grips with the fact that I put my acting career on hold to pursue a career as Toby Flenderson (I work in HR….). I felt like I was letting everyone in my life down and it tore me up for many months…I will be writing more on this subject later, but finally becoming okay with this choice led to this “holy shit I’m turning 25” moment which led to me actually being okay with, and even proud of, my life.

I realized that for all of the things that I was freaking out about, I forgot to take a moment and look back on what I have actually accomplished.

Do I feel like an adult? HELL NO. But I think it is important to take the time every day and think about all of the things that I am doing well in life. So maybe I’m KidPlus™, or perhaps AdultLite™. I doubt I will ever feel like a real adult, but that, I believe, is the great ruse of adulthood: no one ever feels like the adult in the room.