Don't Call Me Shirky: Over 800 People Can't Be Wrong

Birdie sent this to me with the note "This reminded me of the content of some of your blog posts. Plus, it is so funny and I thought you would LIKE IT."
Hyperbole and a Half: This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

Yes. Me + cartoons = that post. And it's funny.

What amazes me is that it has over 800 comments. Eight hundred people feel this way.
My expectations are so high that anything less than perfection gets thrown together in the "I am garbage" pile. "Unable to cure cancer," "didn't email back friend," and "forgot to pay parking ticket" all fall in the same wretched half of my black-and-white world. I go through Allie's responsibility cycle, worked into my very own ballet of self-loathing.
Why?
Over 800 random-ass blog readers responded to say they do the same damn thing. What's going on that so many people's expectations of "normal adulthood" knock them into the fetal position?

We have this strange luxury of choice, this ability to do things with our time other than find food and fight predators. We need what we need to stay alive. Then there's the next layer of the things we need to make life worth living. This is the crap people kill for and die for, things that inspire epic poetry, Opera and phone commercials.
Then there's everything else. There's just so much everything else. It's unnecessary and overwhelming, but it also helps all the people live a little smoother and it can be beautiful and add to the "worth living." But bullshit and junk and imaginary importance and stress stress stress make me run back to being a child, when all the grown-up nonsense is supposed to look like nonsense. I personally made the mistake of taking grown-up nonsense seriously as a child, which makes a lot more sense when you think about it--making noise and writing on lots of papers and everybody picking a title and wearing funny things to signify what they're supposed to be is much more of a child's game than the business of the life-learned. Send me to school now that I need daily gym class, now that I can understand the practical applications of economics, and could really use a refresher course in sharing.

With real mortality-related things happening in my life right now, I have much less luxury of choice. Dealing with my mother's needs and just sucking it up is exhausting, but it certainly reminds me I am and can be an adult. Last night the stress and weather finally won over my over-medicating hyperdrive and I crashed hard. In a strange way, I was glad because it somehow re-legitimized my migraines; like my body made it abundantly clear I'm not just being a pussy and I can't just push through and be OK.

My mom's ok and I'll write more later. Now I need to nap so I can go to my parents' house for dinner.