In the spirit of graduation this weekend, I figured it would be the perfect time to discuss how terrifying the idea of being an adult is. As I am finishing my sophomore year of college and rapidly approaching 20 years old, I am beginning to realize how close real adulthood is. I guess, technically, I have been an adult for almost two years and my parents will tell you I’ve been acting like an adult since I was 12. It certainly doesn’t feel that way. In only two short years (maybe even sooner), I am going to be graduating college and I will have to figure out where I want to go and how I am going to spend the rest of my life.
I had the opportunity to talk to a few students who were graduating this year and I asked one girl what her plans were for after graduation. She told me she was planning on either moving to Nashville or Los Angeles. When I asked her what she was going to be doing once she gets there, all she said was “I have absolutely no idea.” In some ways, hearing her say that actually gave me hope for when I graduate because God knows I’m going to have no idea what I am doing when I graduate. But to be honest, it mostly just made me realize that most people have no idea what they are doing. If being an adult means you stumble around aimlessly wondering what to do next, then I am definitely on the right track to being a functioning adult… right?
When I started the school year this past year, I was moving into my own apartment where I had to be responsible for cleaning, buying groceries, making food, getting a job, and doing laundry. I was actually really excited to start that part of my life because it felt like I had been doing all of those things for quite some time already. However, when all those responsibilities all hit me, it definitely came as a bit more of a struggle than I thought. As a kid, you don’t think about how much your parents actually do for you. They do your laundry, they buy groceries, they make you food; they basically fix all of your problems.
For me, I think the most difficult part of living on my own and juggling all of those responsibilities while also being a full-time student is time management. It just seems as though there isn’t enough time in the week to get everything done that needs to be done. Sleep ends up being the first thing to be sacrificed when becoming an adult. And to be honest, there is nothing that makes me sadder than that truth.
“Adulting,” as I like to call it, is terrifying and exhausting and intriguing all at the same time and it is approaching me very quickly. I can’t tell if I’m actually scared or if I am excited. I go through periods of being completely lost at one point and then totally ready to start the rest of my life at another. Either way, I never thought the past 20 years would go by so fast. It seems like just yesterday I was starting my first day of kindergarten.
