Becoming an adult in six simple steps

Number one: you start to think about laundry detergent options - either the expensive plastic cubes with everything included or the huge packs, but if you go with the packs you'd have to buy three. there you go, already forgetting that your body is your body, and that you are in it. remember when you used to write stories?

Number two: all of a sudden there's a lot less time for the art you always thought you'd be making. instead there are leases to sign and volunteer meetings to half heartedly attend. your emails become more blunt as you stop including "Thank you so much for your time" at the end of them. time is funny, it doesn't feel as if you turned eighteen three months ago.

Number three: the weeks finally start to understand your agenda, they shake themselves awake and quicken their pace. CVs are a painful thing for you now. you say "Have a good weekend" on Tuesdays.

Number four: how much does a dustpan-thing cost at Dollarama vs. at Pharmaprix? everything you told yourself you'd never really end up doing? you're doing: including buying that god-awful gym membership and frowning when people laugh in the library.
you look at the unstamped boxes on your gym card. you compare them to the smoothness of your face and you know which one of the two will stay unstamped.

Number five: you start to hurt for the complicated meals which you used to eat while talking talking talking. back home, there were no such loaded terms like white privilege, islamophobia, heteronormativity. the world could be talked about quite easily.
here, you watch your tongue, watch it bleed, bite it till it bleeds, watch the space in between your knees, watch your mouth, on the metro, look rested but not superior, not aggressive, not bitchfaced, not flirtatious, your face isn't the bouncy thing it used to be.

Number six: now your shell is almost completely hardened, there is one more thing to do: it is time to dread the nostalgia you will feel in ten years when reflecting on the person you are right. now.