Beyond “Adulting is Hard” we need to get specific about the struggle

There's a phrase we all lean on when life feels overwhelming: "Adulting is hard."

We say it with a knowing smile, maybe a shrug, and someone else nods in agreement. In that moment, there's comfort in the shared acknowledgment. But this weekend, sitting around a table with friends I've known since we were learning our multiplication tables, I realised that split second of relatability isn't enough. 

We hadn't gathered in far too long. Life had scattered us in different directions, new jobs, relationships, responsibilities, the relentless momentum of building adult lives. When we finally coordinated schedules and made it happen, I expected an evening of celebration. We've all become people to be proud of, after all. Successful careers, dreams we're actually chasing. I anticipated laughter, nostalgia, maybe some stories about the absurdity of bills and cost of living.

What I didn't expect was the tears. Or rather, I didn't expect how necessary they would be.

Something shifted when someone finally broke past the pleasantries. Maybe it was the familiarity, the way you can sit with people who knew you when your biggest worry was whether you'd make the Headteacher's Honour roll this term, and suddenly the armor we've all learned to wear as adults feels unnecessary. One person shared something specific. Not "life is stressful," but the actual details of what's keeping them up at night. Not "surviving in this country in really rough"," but the particular burden they've been carrying alone. And then, like a dam breaking, we all followed. TEARS!

"Adulting is hard" is true, but it's also a shield. It's what we say when we're not quite ready to be vulnerable. It's the elevator pitch version of our struggles, designed to be digestible, relatable, and safely vague. But healing doesn't happen in vagueness. Connection doesn't deepen through shared platitudes.

What happened around that table was something different. We got specific. We talked about the particular ways we're each navigating loneliness, career uncertainty, family expectations, anxiety, the weight of trying to figure out who we're becoming while also trying to pay rent and remember to drink enough water. We shared strategies some working, some failing spectacularly. We admitted to mistakes, celebrated small victories, and held space for each other's very specific, very messy realities.

The embrace that followed felt different from any other hug I've received in recent memory. It wasn't sympathy or pity. It was recognition. It was the comfort of being truly seen, not in spite of the hard things, but within them.

I left that evening with something I didn't know I desperately needed, renewed spirit. Not because anyone solved my problems or because we pretended everything was fine. But because I was reminded that the antidote to isolation isn't more people knowing you're struggling, it's having people who know exactly how you're struggling, and who trust you enough to let you see their own specifics in return.

Here's what I'd want you to take away from this... the next time someone asks how you're doing and you feel that automatic "adulting is hard" rising to your lips, try to go deeper. With the people who've earned that trust of course, be specific. Name the hard things. Ask them to do the same so they know that you are also there for them.

Because we're all really going through it. But we don't have to go through it in vague, polite isolation. We can go through it together, with details and tears and the kind of vulnerability that only becomes possible when you're sitting with people who remember who you were before you learned to hide.

Make time for those reconnections. Create space for real conversation. Get specific about what's hard. And when someone trusts you with their specifics, hold it gently. That's where the real comfort lives, not in the shared phrase, but in the shared truth.

Thank you to my childhood friends, Stefon and Tamya for helping me find the inspiration to start blogging again. 

PS: we've been friends since primary school but I have no photos from then. (that might be a good thing lmao)