I stood in the pre-op room, his kiss still fresh on my lips, and watched my boyfriend be pushed away into the operating room for emergency surgery. It was 12:40 am, we were across the state from our family and friends. At this moment, I was alone. And I was terrified.

And that was the moment I became an adult.

I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. In the United States, we're considered a legal adult at 18. But just because legally we are an adult, does not mean we are an adult mentally. Something within us must change from our depending-on-others mentality. I don't know about you, but my birthdate says a different age than I feel. I say I'm a certain age, but I feel like I'm not there yet. I feel like I'm not ready to be as old as I am. I feel like the expectations of people my age are too high for me.

But something happened, I was alone and had to be the one that my boyfriend depended on as he went into surgery at 1 a.m. I didn't have anyone else to rely on in that moment. For me, this was new, but there we were. I didn't have another option. And that's the moment that something changed within me and I simply grew up.

I say simply, but it's not simple at all. There just isn't any other way to describe it. But I know you know what I'm talking about because you have either gone through it or you are patiently waiting to go through it.

Maybe it was the moment your parents pulled away from college, and you were living on your own for the first time. Maybe it was the moment you paid your own electricity bill, rent, or phone bill. Maybe it was the moment you bought your very first car with your own money. Maybe it was the moment you went to the doctor by yourself for the first time. Maybe you didn't even realize what it was, but all of the sudden you realized you were an adult.

As a 21-year-old, I have felt like an adult. I make my own decisions, pay my own bills, make my own money, but my parents come whenever I need them, no questions asked. I've never been in a situation alone because I've always had somebody to call on to be with me when I'm alone or afraid. But when we were across the state for a concert and ended up in the hospital for his appendix awaiting surgery, it was just me and him.

What's amazing about that moment is that something changed within me. When he was pushed away for surgery, I was forced to become strong. When your parents left you at college, you were forced to take care of yourself. When the bill came in the mail, you had to use your own money to pay it. When you went to the doctor alone, you had to answer the questions and get the tests done without your parents. It was the first time we become independent and didn't have to lean on somebody else for support.

Usually, I would say that we should have somebody to lean on, but when it comes to this, we can't. There's a point in our lives where we go from depending on our parents to depending on ourselves. There's a point in our parent's lives, before they were parents, where they stopped living and mooching off their parents and started becoming mature and making adult decisions. And now, we're at that point.

This is it. We're here. We're becoming adults, and not just by age, but by mentality. We're changing, and we're at that point where we stop depending on others and let others depend on us. And let me tell you, it's scary. And unless you are forced to go through it, you won't. But destiny will force you too, something within you will change, and you will walk away different. You will walk away with a new mentality.

You will walk away, finally, as an adult.