When I Grow Up

Little kid's assignment where they've written "When I grow up I want to be a mailbox" and attempted to draw something. Image source.

I've been out of school and working a full-time job for about 5 years now, and so I feel like I've been an adult for 5 years. It's quite interesting and unexpected how there's been so much change in my life during that time. Things are definitely better right now than they were a few years ago.

My job is way better. When I first came to China back in 2013, I worked as an English teacher because I couldn't find an engineering job. I had to work evenings and weekends because the students were adults who came to class when they got off work. Teaching isn't really a good job for me because it requires way more people skills than I have. But eventually I did leave teaching and get a job as an engineer- and it was really hard at the beginning, doing an entry-level R&D job as an immigrant at a Chinese company. But the more time passes, the more work experience I have to show for it, and it gets easier. I've changed jobs a few times, and every time is easier because I can tell them I now have X years of work experience in engineering.

Seriously, I never expected this. Nothing in my whole life prepared me for finding out just how different it is looking for a job when I have work experience in that field vs when I don't. Or worse, when I've been out of school for a while and teaching instead of doing engineering. That's sort of a suspicious gap to have in my career- but as time passes, the time I spent as an English teacher moves farther and farther into the past, and employers don't care about it any more.

And I work normal hours now! It's so great to have free time in the evenings and weekends so I can spend time with friends and with Hendrix. My schedule now is just so much BETTER than when I was teaching. My job is so much better. I'm doing what I actually want to do. And it makes my life better.

Then there's my apartment. Hendrix and I have lived in a few different places, and the quality of our housing situation has a big effect on how good life is. How long is the commute? How far from our home to a subway station? Does our building have an elevator? Is the hot water heater good or crappy? How big is the apartment? It's just so good to live without the constant tiny stress of having to carefully shuffle around narrow paths through shelves and boxes piled high because that apartment was too small.

I'm really happy with our current housing situation. And that makes life better.

My health is way better now too. Specifically, mental health. A few years ago, I had depression because of ... uh ... purity culture and Christian teaching on hell and all that. And now, from time to time I marvel at how completely good and wonderful it is to not have depression. I would like to give credit to these 2 things, as the reasons I no longer have depression:

1. I had premarital sex.
2. I stopped trying to go to church.

(I plan to never stop talking about this, because it's the opposite of everything I was taught in church, and people need to know.)

So, so, so good to not have depression.

And another thing that's changed is understanding myself as autistic. Now I know that sometimes I have different needs than other people, and those needs are real and I deserve to have them met, so I should politely communicate about what I need, because other people aren't going to realize it on their own. This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than what I had always done before- when I was a little kid, I was taught that if I think I need something different from other people, that's wrong and I'm being selfish and I just need to learn to be okay without getting my needs met.

It's so good and healthy how I've been learning how to know my own emotions and needs. Really makes a lot of things so much easier.

Also I have a bunch of friends now! As previously mentioned, I'm not trying to go to church any more, so I ended up going to some groups based around common interests and hobbies and such, and met all these great people from different countries. We have a pretty cool international community here in Shanghai. And it's really good having friendships based on just having fun together and being good people, and nobody is trying to suss out anyone's religious beliefs and judge and reject them for it.

And I don't know if I mentioned it or not (lol) but I got married last year, and that's pretty awesome too. Having Hendrix in my life is great, and living with him makes me so happy because I get to be with him all the time.

Anyway, I'm writing about this- about how "being an adult" isn't just one thing, how my life circumstances have changed in a lot of ways over the past few years- for 2 reasons:

1. Because when I was a kid, I thought adults had it all figured out and they didn't change.

People always ask little kids "what do you want to be when you grow up?" It makes it sound like you can only be 1 thing. It makes it sounds like "when you grow up" is something you can just take one snapshot of, to represent the whole thing- rather than something that goes through many different phases as the years pass. Nobody ever told me you can do one job for a while, and then if you want you can change to a completely different job, and then maybe 10 years later change again. I didn't know you could live in one place for a while, then move to a different place. Uh, I don't know, maybe adults did tell me that at some point- like, I was aware of the concept of moving- but I didn't really *get* it.

As a kid, my life changed a lot- first I was in elementary school, then middle school, then high school, etc. I lost baby teeth and grew new ones. I got taller. I learned stuff in school everyday. Always getting better and better. There were milestones. There was noticeable progress. There were goals. But I thought after you graduate from college, then you immediately get married and get a job and a house, and then after that, your life just stays the same from that point on.

I assumed that when I was "grown up" I would more or less know everything. Once I got to a certain age, I would never be confused or scared again. I didn't know adults had all the same emotions I did. They always seemed so confident and unflappable.

So this whole "adulting" thing is so much different than I expected.

2. Because evangelical Christianity taught me that it's not possible for a change in life circumstances to actually make people happier.

In the Christianity I used to believe, there was always a lot of talk about how God is all we need, and we shouldn't have something in our life that's so important it becomes an "idol" and we love it more than God. It was wrong to think "I'm unhappy because I don't have xyz, if I only had xyz my life would be so much better." In my case, back in college I wanted a boyfriend- but I told myself no, a boyfriend won't make me happy, only God can make me *truly* happy. (Like, I believed it wasn't wrong to have desires like that, but I shouldn't focus on them too much.)

We were supposed to be content, regardless of our circumstances, because we have a relationship with Jesus. That's all that matters, right? And this kind of mindset discourages people from setting goals for their future, because Christians know that changing our life circumstances doesn't make us happy. And besides, if you really really want something and you work hard to get it, well, isn't it likely that thing would become an "idol"?

I can't believe I have to say this, because isn't it obvious? YES, OF COURSE there are times when a change in your life circumstances has a huge effect on your happiness on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes I think to myself, "Remember when we were living in that apartment where the window didn't really shut all the way so it was super-cold all winter? Wow, I am SO GLAD we're not there any more." There are so many examples. So many situations I've been in, in the past, where I'm SO GLAD things have changed and I'm not living that way anymore. And none of it is at all related to "God is all I need" and "being content in any and all circumstances" and "idols."

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And Hendrix and I have more goals for our future. We have some ideas about other things we want to change to make our life better, and we're working toward those things. And inevitably there will be new problems that come up in the future and change our life circumstances and affect our "contentment."

Things change, because that's how life is. And I had no idea about that before.