The "Almost There" Phase

In Spanish, one of my favorite words is "casi," which means "almost." "Es casi como..." or "It's almost like..." has become a default phrase of mine when I struggle to find the right words to describe a situation in Spanish.

But I've come to realize that "casi" isn't just useful because of my limited vocabulary; it's also one of my favorite words because I feel that being 20 years old, the majority of my life is filled with "almost."

At this stage in life, we're caught between that weird mixture of independence and dependence. We're "casi adultos," "almost adults," needing our parents or guardians to help us with major life expenses or decisions, but also leading our own lives and taking on new responsibilities. We're that paradoxical category of adult children.

We find ourselves almost done with college, which in turn means we need to be almost certain on which career path we plan to pursue or what we want to do post-graduation.

Many of us have been or are interns, the equivalent of almost having a full-time professional career (especially in those unpaid positions in which you were almost compensated monetarily for your hours).

We know people, or maybe ourselves, in almost serious, long-term relationships. We see the people around us transition from being members of the college hookup culture and dating scene to having significant others in that you almost-can't-mention-one-without-mentioning-the-other way.

We can almost cook without setting off a smoke detector on a weekly basis.

We can almost call other adults by their first names without having known them previously.

We almost have a business professional wardrobe.

We can almost do laundry properly (including ironing everything).

We're there. Well, almost.