I was on my way to what was supposed to be a relaxing brunch. The rain had recently stopped after a torrential downpour that had lasted the entire night before. Maybe in hindsight I should have recognized the poetry of the karmic meltdown that I was nearing.

The sky was mostly cleared up when I climbed into my car and flipped the switch to remove the remaining drops from my windshield. Now, I’m not the most mechanically knowledgeable person in the world, but it seems like one of those universal truths: thy wiper blades on thine automobile shall not cross (which is what mine had done). When I stepped out of the car and gave my best tugs on both blades and got no reaction, I knew it was out of my hands. I called my mechanic, Jessie.

After he told me that my wiper mechanism was completely mutilated, I was well on my way to my second $500+ car repair in the past six months. My car isn’t a luxury ride, but it’s not a clunker, either. I bought it the summer before I left for college, and in my naïve little mind, I’d hoped to get another five years or so out of it before I had to start making these repairs.

It’s not just the car. Since I graduated a year and a half ago, there seems to be a lurking expense around every corner. There’s always an uncovered dental visit, an unexpectedly huge electricity bill or a barrage of wedding gifts to give.

When I told my mom about the latest costly repair, she predictably offered to help me out financially if I needed it. While it was nice to know the assistance was available, I told her thanks but no thanks. I like to think that I’m a big boy now and I can handle my own problems.

“The frustrating thing,” I told her, “is that every time I think I’m getting ahead or at least caught up, there’s a car repair waiting for me. Or something. There’s always something.”

She laughed.

“Welcome to real life.”

I immediately thought back to a conversation I would have with friends during college. As newly minted “adults” who were out on our own for the first time, we resented it when professors or parents would refer to “the real world” as something we weren’t yet a part of. As if what we were doing at the time — attending classes, paying (some) bills and working part-time job — somehow didn’t qualify as real.

But it hit me when my mom said that, that this is real life now. Maybe I’ll look back at this stage 5, 10 or 25 years from now when I have a family and a mortgage and most of my big plans are either under way, completed, long forgotten or completely refocused from what they are currently, and I’ll wonder if here and now was ever “real” life.

It sure feels like it. While the whole car situation ultimately came back to financial concerns, it wasn’t only about the money. My girlfriend, Amanda, asked me throughout the day and throughout my increasingly grumpy mood whether I had the money for the repair. It was a rhetorical question; I had the money and she knew it. But it was the frustration of the situation that got me so down. I don’t want to pay for $500 car repairs. We’re adults now, and while we finally have the freedom of a paycheck, we also have the chains of financial responsibility. And there’s the rub.

Welcome to real life, indeed.

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