I Try Adulting for a Week

I documented a week of driving as a new driver at 32, wanna join me?

Welcome to Living Lately! As a late bloomer, sometimes I share new experiences to me, that’re probably second nature to most. This week I had some fun documenting my first handful of solo driving experiences as a new driver. I had errands to run and work to do. Did I succeed? Read (or scan) through below to find out!

When’s the last time you’ve done something for the first time?

Diving into the unknown of anything you’ve never experienced can be scary, exhilarating, filled with growing pains… 

So that’s why I wanted to document my first week of “being an adult.”

I’m writing this on a Sunday night, but in the upcoming week my top priorities (hopefully, in a perfect world) are to:

• Return two Amazon packages to two different locations (I did not sign up for this as a new driver).

• Pick up a few things at the grocery store for a mini Thanksgiving meal to make the dishes I missed this year.

• Finish writing, researching, and publishing my first personal essay in months.

• Visiting a nonalcoholic bar to try their herby grilled cheese and a beer that sounds like a cream soda, and work. :)

• Finish making the graphics for my rebrand here on Substack.

• Start working on/writing my first post for a possible monthly installment.

From what I can tell, I prefer to drive in the late morning, early afternoon… So I’m going to try and shoot for that window for the tasks where I need to leave the house.

You’re probably chuckling, aren’t you? I don’t blame you.

For most, driving is probably second nature for you. Whether you turn on Google Maps or not, hate it or love it… you just… do it.

But as someone who just did their first solo drive to grab a few things from the store a couple of weeks ago, I’m working up to driving being a second nature thing for me.

It’s my “first time” thing.

For some reason while I was mentally mapping out my week of errands and outings, I felt like an entire day would be taken up by driving to one or two places.

Maybe because I needed to decompress after my one and only solo drive the other week… I stayed sane during that by talking to my GPS the entire time I drove, and popping on my noise-canceling headphones to scream along to Ludacris’ “Numba One Spot” and Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over” when I got home.

Anyway, it’s 1:17am on Monday November the 27th as I finish up the beginning of this post.

I’ve pre-heated my heated blanket, set out a candle to light later in the week, got a warm outfit out for the least amount of friction when leaving the house alone, updated my weekly planner app, and set up my scheduler app for Monday’s tasks.

Let’s get adulting.

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Monday

Goals:

• Grocery run

• Research hair essay

• Brand graphics

Our 20-something neighbors must’ve forgotten something.

Their front door is right next to my room, and my window can see who comes and goes.

Right before Thanksgiving, they seemed to have been moving out. I watched as they filled two cars with dressers and trash bags.

They looked young, always had backpacks during the week as they left the house, and smoked weed some weekends that would travel through our connected vents.

If they can drive so casually, so can I.

Especially since my therapist gave me permission to be in my 20s again.

They’re in their 20s and living in and out of the house is second nature for them.

I want it to be second nature for me too.

So I woke up that morning confident and eager about the schedule I created the night before. After finishing my morning routine it was about 12:45pm by the time I put on my clothes to go pick up some things from the store.

2:30pm

Well, I’m back home now. How’d I do?

I obtained the groceries, and got a little cocky.

Before leaving the grocery store I told myself, “You know what? I can handle one more run!”

I put in the address for UPS, and ended up at a CVS nearby¹.

Oops!

They did have a CVS spot in there, but my return had to be packaged if I was dropping it off at a non-official store. So I decided to let tomorrow be the day I stop at CVS and Whole Foods despite pretty minimal traffic.

What I learned stresses me out the most about driving (traffic or not) is:

Needing to cross at least two lanes to go the opposite direction (aka - watching for cars coming in at least 3 lanes, kinda like jumping in on a fatal hopscotch). And don’t get me started on trying to cross multiple lanes safely when there’s a car waiting behind you. *sobs*

And trying to orient myself when leaving a parking lot. There’s SO many ways to leave a parking lot… how do I know what main road I’m ending up on, and whether to go left or right?

Being out with the elderly is a vibe. Nice and calm. Less traffic… I get it. I hope my future involves letting me leave in the middle of the weekday in the morning to get errands done before hunkering down to work.

I also laughed at myself when I mentally worked out in my head how to get to the actual CVS store while walking back to my car, and immediately sitting in the passenger seat.

Tomorrow? I’m setting my schedule to hopefully leave even earlier. Let’s see how it goes…

Overall it was a good day! Didn’t touch any work from my Top 3 priorities for the say aside from some of the research and writing for the hair essay (not nearly enough). 

Even though I hardly got anything done once I got home, I felt like a real live adult leaving the house to run an errand. A capable adult! It felt more natural going to the store, and I didn’t need to scream song lyrics to calm my nerves once I got home! Yay!

TUESDAY

Goals:

• Finish hair essay

• Polish and schedule hair essay

• Take COVID test (... cause I don’t have faith I’ll make it to the store in daylight today)

Yesterday I decided to get out of bed by 8am so I could leave the house even earlier for a longer trek to drop off both packages.

Did I do it? No, I woke up around 9:30, 9:45am.

I didn’t even get an outfit out yesterday, for today!

It was 11pm before I knew it. Like… Honestly, what happened to the time yesterday?!

Today, I’m more concerned with how little of this essay I have done. I’m not satisfied with that/it. So… That may be the focus for today, and I’ll go out and drive tomorrow.

I’m not comfortable driving at night quite yet and it gets dark here by 5:30pm so… We’ll see if I make it out to run errands later today (but don’t hold your breath).

9:47pm

I’m not done with the essay.

But I also don’t have COVID–hurray!

We stopped by to visit my grandma a couple hours ago and I tried working on it here and there, but am not done with the final product.

I refuse to rush it and will get it out this week, but I also miiiight be throwing in the towel for tonight.

We ate dinner, but I ate light because I have a piece of raw salmon in the fridge I still need to fix tonight.

I’ll try to work some after I eat… But I’m kinda disappointed in myself because I had really hoped to have been done so I could solely focus on driving early tomorrow.

I guess I’m also kinda disappointed in myself because I don’t feel capable of both driving to run errands, and returning home to work all in the same day.

That’s ridiculous. And now I’m kinda dreading going to sleep because I’ll need to wake up with the sole mission of leaving the house to drive.

This is whiney, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I don’t mean for it to be.

I just can’t wait to someday be able to look back at my slight anxiety around being a new driver and chuckle reading this.

Wednesday

Goals:

• Return package to CVS

• Return package to Whole Foods

• Get essay done (?)

10:13am

I woke up later than expected (hoping to head out by around 10:30am but now I’m thinking I’ll leave between 12:30 and 1pm), and I’m embodying the identity of someone who drives all the time.

It’s also crossed my mind the parallels of this year, to last year. How very very bad things were getting. How stressed and dark things were… And now I’m out here with a license, about to run errands. At peace. What a wild world we live in.

I decided to do a Brad Yates tapping video for driving confidence before I head out. That’s the plan, that’s the plan… Once I finish my morning routine I’ll probably be getting ready to head out.

I’m truly in a good, confident mood! Let’s keep it up!

5:34pm

Guys…

WE DID IT!

I didn’t even need the tapping video!

The traffic wasn’t bad at all and driving felt quite smooth today. I had two people give me the tiny, “you’ve got this, go ahead!” honks when I was pretty sure I was in the clear, but was a little doubtful haha.

Also, can you tell me what a double traffic light means? When I’m in the left turning lane at the intersection and the green light on the right turns green, but the green light closer to me never does?

Wild. Gotta remember to ask my dad about that.

Also learned that for driving? I hands-down prefer Apple Maps. If Apple Maps had the Google Maps features like estimating when you should leave the house, the live traffic view, and the name overlays on the buildings so I can better understand where the map’s taking me, it’d be perfect.

But I like Apple Maps better for driving because it tells you how many stop lights until your next turn, not “in a quarter mile, turn right onto Harvard Road.”

Ma’am. Is it now? At the stop light several yards away from this one? I don’t SEE any signs here for anything other than the street I’m on!!

Nerve-wracking.

Anyway, I returned all my packages and went to Marshalls for more fall/wintry candles (got three), went to a great bagel place to get blueberry bagels, stopped by the post office, and dropped into Target to get extra cream cheese and also found a new creamer to try.

I was on a roll! Felt like I foraged for goods; I came home using my goods with pride.

I got home about 2:30pm, but didn’t really sit down to work until like… 4:30pm. I toasted my bagel, made an iced coffee with the new frosted gingerbread creamer I got, and got a call from a really good friend and caught him up on most of my year this year since mom’s passed.

Ate my bagel after the call, then hopped onto my computer.

Again, not too much work done. But with a late lunch and half caf coffee in my system, I was able to do a little bit.

Thursday

Goals:

• Finish essay?!

• Go to NA bar to work

• Work on most brand graphics

1:29pm

Y’all… I almost talked myself out of it.

As I type this, I’m standing by the door waiting for my dad to see me off. But I dunno WHY it felt dreadful to throw on some clothes and pack to go to the bar.

Maybe because I feel like it’s a time crunch. I just wanna sit down and get to work. And I will… soon, once I get to the place I desire to work.

I could’ve stayed in today and just (hopefully) have gone out tomorrow as a celebration, but it’s supposed to be raining and a bit colder tomorrow so, today it is.

I did walk to the mailbox before getting ready to leave today and ran into a very friendly UPS man.

A sign to leave the house and get some fresh air if I’ve ever seen one.

2:07pm

I made it… I made it…

And I had the place to myself for a good long while! The “cranberry cordial” and “rosemary's toasty” were winners and a great light lunch.

I was really curious about a non-alcoholic beer and decided to take it home to try later. I really never drink, but just love finding less sugary, complexly flavored drinks when I can.

Anyway, I think I was more anxious on this drive today because I just kept thinking about all the work I needed to do and finish, but overall the drive was fine.

But I did it! I made it here, and now it’s 3:55pm and I’m getting nervous again because I just really wanna get this essay done so I can move onto a few other things I want/need to do!

No more complaining; I’m gettin’ back to work.

4:47pm

Heading home. I noticed as I walked to my car in this area’s “downtown” that just this summer I watched in amazement as young women in downtown Chicago walked the streets alone. Looking like they were on a mission!

Just a few months ago, I was nearly tearing up with fear when my therapist gave me the homework to walk alone to our mailbox and back.

Now look at me! Walking to my car alone feels… natural. At least here. Regardless how relatively safe it is here, this is a BIG step for me from just earlier this year.

I’m proud of me! I’m still anxiously wanting to just sit still and work but… I see me, I’m proud of myself!

Friday

Goals:

• Reply to everyone on Substack

• Reply to everyone’s emails

• Reply to everyone on social media

• Work on brand graphics

• Pack for short trip

It’s 12:31am so technically it’s Friday.

The essay wasn’t completed, but I made an announcement about the switch-up and when things would be actually coming out. Pushing expected publishing dates out really took a lot of weight off my shoulders.

I feel more capable and less overwhelmed. I feel like the announcement I made makes what I need to get done more doable.

Anyway, I feel bad for not getting the essay done so I’ll share this today instead. I’d like to look back on it someday.

It’ll be rainy and gloomy today; no driving. Just playing catch up and packing for one last trip this weekend.

It was a good week overall, and I’m glad I remembered I could switch things up if need be when it comes to writing here on Substack.

This was a great end to the week. Thanks for joining me on this crazy new experience that you’ve probably been doing for decades now!

I’d love to hear if you remember any first driving stories or feelings in the comments!

And I'll see you around soon enough. ♥️

1. A drug store, essentially.