I am a 19-year-old girl (or dare I say woman?) and phrases such as "those adults over there" and "when I grow up" are still in my arsenal of frequently used clauses. Legally, I became an adult when I turned 18, but there I was, with my cigarillo and my lottery ticket in hand, not knowing a thing about paying taxes or signing a lease on an apartment. When I'm babysitting, I tell the kids that I am an adult, but when I'm with the generation above me I consider myself just a big kid. I look at my peers and think about how we are so responsible and capable, but I also see how naive we still are and that we mostly have no idea what we're doing in life. So I am led to wonder, when does adulthood settle in? When do we truly have our lives fully together? When was that magic "adult fairy dust" sprinkled on me?
Was I an adult at 18?
Was I an adult when I purchased my first lottery ticket and cigarillo?
Was it when I paid my first bill?
How about when I first was allowed to stay home alone for weeks at a time?
Was it when I got all my own supplies and painted my bedroom with a friend?
Am I an adult at all?
Will I be an adult when I turn 21?
Will I be an adult when I graduate college?
Will it happen when I have my first full-time job?
Or will I have to wait until I'm married?
With children of my own?
Will it ever happen?
Maybe I've been an adult since I could logically/rationally think about things, or maybe it happened when I started seeing my parents as people rather than just my mom and dad, or maybe, adulthood is just a scam—It's a word we use to indicate some kind of authority, but in all truth, we are all the same, just at different points in our lives. Some of us are more mature at 15 than others are at 35, some of us are smarter or wealthier, or have more security. But none of these in themselves inherently indicate "adulthood." Most of the "adults" I know, even if they seem to "have their lives together", say that they truly have no idea what they're doing, and that parenting is a guessing game, and that the future is always unknown. Maybe we all are fumbling around our whole lives in search of the best way to do things, and we need to learn that no one truly has their whole life tied up neatly in a bow, as the term "adulthood" used to represent to me.
As a kid, I thought parents knew everything. As a bigger kid, I learned that they don't know most things. As an "adult," I learned that I'm just a big kid. And right now, I am learning that all "adults" are just big kids.
