A letter from the messy middle of becoming an adult
I’ve been struggling a bit this past week…
Okay, okay—if I’m being honest, I’ve been struggling a lot over the past few years.
But that’s a story for another day.
Today, let’s talk about adulting.
Let’s just say it: adulting, in so many ways, can suck.
There—I said it. I know we’ve all been thinking it.
Here’s where I’m at right now. Buckle up. Some hard, emotional, naked truths ahead…
When I was younger, I imagined that by the time I hit my 40s, I’d have it all figured out.
I thought I’d own the home, have the kids, the dream job or career—whatever it was meant to be—and a life that felt perfectly curated. A Pinterest board brought to life.
Well… here I am at 42.
I have the kids.
I have the rental house.
I have the marriage. The pets.
The mortgage?
The career?
The perfect Pinterest life?
Nope. Nope. And nope.
The truth is, I’ve always felt a little out of sync with the phase of life I’m “supposed” to be in. I don’t know if it’s the trauma of having cancer at such a young age, or the things that happened before and after, or just the way some of us are wired. Maybe all of it.
I’ve done the therapy. I’ve done the work.
But because I didn’t have language for it back then, therapy couldn’t quite touch it.
It’s this underlying hum I’ve always carried—the sense that I’m not quite here, not quite grown, not quite settled.
And then there’s social media.
What a blessing. What a curse.
I love watching other people’s lives unfold. I celebrate their milestones and accomplishments. But sometimes, when I scroll through everyone else’s highlight reels, I feel like I’m way behind in the game.
I start thinking about all the choices I didn’t make—or the ones I did, but didn’t know better. So many of them were made from survival, not vision. I was chasing what I thought was right, instead of slowing down enough to ask what was true for me.
As a mom, this is where it hits the hardest.
My older boys didn’t get to grow up in one place. They grew up in transition—house to house, season to season. I wasn’t rooted, and so neither were they. I thought I was chasing stability for us, but now I see… maybe I needed to stop chasing and start planting.
It’s a grief I carry. A guilt that comes in waves.
I should have known better.
I should have paid more attention—not just to their physical needs, but their emotional ones too.
Yes, I worked full-time. Yes, I did the best I could. But still… I see now what I didn’t see then.
Now? I can only move forward.
I can root now, so that my youngest grows up grounded.
I can create a soft, safe landing place for my older two.
I can build a home that they can count on—one that welcomes them when life throws its curveballs (and it always does).
Maybe one day I’ll stop feeling like I’m in some bizarre game of pretend, and I’ll actually start to feel like a real adult.
I don’t know when—or if—that day will come. But I’m trying to lean into that truth and do the best I can in the meantime.
And God willing, they’ll do better with those curveballs than I did.
I don’t know if I’ll ever fully feel like a grown-up.
But maybe that’s not the point.
Maybe the point is to keep growing.
To stay honest.
To love better each time.
To trust that grace can hold the parts we’re still figuring out.
Thanks for being here, for reading, and for letting me be real in this messy, beautiful middle.
With love and always grace,
-J
Steele Water 
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