That delusion of grandeur that I had when I first moved out of my home town house has long since left. Probably like the countless other youths before me who were so certain that the whole world was theirs to mold, the control I have over this freedom wanes year after year. Confident strides into adulthood have devolved into awkward stutter steps that get me through the day.
That paints a pretty bleak picture as to how my transition out of childhood went. Thinking about that now, I wonder when that happened. The idea that hitting your eighteenth birthday automatically registering you as a grown-up was always laughable. It was somewhere else, perhaps the night I lost my virginity, or maybe it was the day I definitively decided to leave home. There is sense in the idea that a particular event, not a number, decides when you reach maturity.
Honestly, though, being "mature" has little priority these days since the world around me lately has been regularly showing me that maturity may have been a lie all along. Forgive the political commentary, but Trump's continuous stream of over exaggerations has been a fantastic example of that fact. Some grown people don’t actually pick up on particular etiquettes and norms that will bring one into the realm of maturity and it's many forms, be it mental, emotional, or physical. There is only so much that a developed personality and its accompanying tastes say about you as a cognitive adult.
With that in consideration, there may lie a considerable danger in thinking that adulthood comes about from a "sagely mindset" that portrays wisdom and stability. I would advocate instead thatadulthood is most aligned with self-sufficiency.
Since we all eventually need to depend on ourselves for certain things, the ability to get things done on your own should account for the majority of your points. How and where you procure food, transportation, and income are perhaps top 3 on the list. Regardless of your parent's or sibling's involvement in your life, for the majority of us there will come a point where weare forced to look out for ourselves and establish everything that we need alone. To think there was a time when I was unable to even move a few feet or feedwithout another human being's help is jarring.
Even scarier is the idea that the day is approaching where I will be in that state again, as will all of us. Old age and death are looming storm clouds that are a day 1 promise to all that live and breathe. I'm no exception to the fear of death, but through some exceptional elderly folks, I have also learned that the trip to grandpa status isn't completely awful. In addition to both of my grandmothers being wonderful and independent human beings, a neighbor that I had growing up, Connie, also reinforced the idea of self-sufficiency in old age. Up until her death in her late nineties, Connie took out her own trash, cooked her own meals, and looked out for the neighborhood stray cats. All while living alone. I keep the dollar coin that she gave me for my seventh birthday close even to this day in memory of how awesome she was.
I fear for my own ability to take care of myself.I am often reminded of how much more I need to do in order to secure a stable future for myself,usually through the minor daily struggles of adult responsibilities. Getting to work on time and making it through the day without the hotel melting or deciding between the convenient and tasty poison from value menu and an annoying, self-produced home meal are conundrums that will be in no short supply on the way out.
