A few things happened to me over the past few weeks that made me wonder whether or not I had officially grown up:
1. I unintentionally fell asleep at 10:30 pm on New Year’s Eve without having engaged in any sort of social activity.
2. I drove myself downtown on a Saturday morning to set up a new banking account, which I’ll now be able to use when I travel abroad without any foreign transaction fees. Nice, right?
3. I scheduled and also drove myself to my own dentist appointment, aka the most unwelcoming place on the planet.
4. I’ve now been living at home for four and a half weeks, without anything to do except have extra time to myself to spend thinking superfluously.
Age-wise, I’m definitely an adult, as I’m turning 21 in July (holla!). But growing up involves more than a numerical cut-off. It’s about mindset: abandoning youthful ideology, recognizing harsh truths, remembering to get an oil change, and buying your own self some groceries every once in a while. This doesn’t come easy.
Right now, I’d say I’m 50 percent grown up. I’m a full-time student, getting ready to leave the U.S. for four months to cease the opportunity to become more culturally mature and independent. I have health insurance and I pay monthly utility fees while I’m living in my own house at school. I also voluntarily now eat all the gross things in trail mix instead of just the raisins and M&Ms.
Yet the other 50 percent of me still believes you can make friends by making trades at lunch and routinely checks for bad things under my bed every night before I sleep. Considering I believed in Santa Claus until seventh grade, it’s no surprise I’m running a little behind grown-upness-wise. There were absolutely zero signs that Santa was a fraud until my grandma destroyed him with her imagination ax while she was staying with us one weekend and my parents were out of town. She told me my younger sister still believed in that stuff, so I needed to go along with it for a little while longer…that I shouldn’t ruin it for her.
RUIN WHAT?!
I’ve long since come to terms with the Santa situation, but there are still other things I’m unwilling to forfeit. For instance, I was legitimately bummed when the dentist didn’t let me choose which color toothbrush I got to take home after my visit last week. When did that start happening? Also, remember free cookies at the grocery store when you showed your cookie card? Only for kids. Boom. Welcome to the real world.
Looking through old photos, it’s unclear where I am in the whole grown-up process. I appear most mystified by life around the time I received my first Communion at church. The Catholics lay a lot on you about Heaven, Jesus, and managing your sins, and it’s hard to balance all of that while also posing sweetly in your little white dress...
I also look pretty innocent here, jumping into the lake like a zoo animal on the loose…I’d have attempted anything that day.
I began to feel more grown up when I started making decisions for myself, one of them being a complete ousting on the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle in my teens.
Finally, I honed in on this picture at my grandma's beach house in Florida.
She used to vacation in a quaint place by the beach, where everything in the world was possible. We would look for gators and went fishing and only once did my bubble of awesome burst when fire ants obliterated my bare feet; then I came back and obliterated them with my Keds.
Looking at that photo, I decided you grow up a little bit each time you learn what it means to lose something you can’t get back. Time, of course, is the most significant loss to digest, but it’s difficult to understand the value of a minute. I only totally get it when I’m on my way to class every morning.
When my grandma died, when there was no more house by the beach with a beautiful sunset to watch every night, I grew up a lot. When my dog started getting noticeably older, I grew up too.
When I got two speeding tickets only a year after I got my license, and was forced to earn that money back, I grew up a ton.
Any time I wasted an opportunity to try something new or act spontaneously, I grew up because I was stuck with the end result.
The one thing I haven’t lost is my imagination, and all the wonderings that once made me believe in Santa and that maybe I could learn to fly my jumping off my backyard playset. I still think people are inherently good, I get really excited about rollercoasters, and I consider Ring Pops to be one of the best things ever. Furthermore, to this day, I’m devastated by the death of Littlefoot’s mom in The Land Before Time. Never have I cried harder.
Most importantly, I continue to believe that if you try really hard, life will work out. Whatever it is you’re trying for, it will always work out. Even if you want to be Batman like this kid...
That being said, I’m hoping to marry Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights one day.
See, you could definitely say I’m like 50 percent grown up.
