Navigating Pseudo-Adulthood

Being in college is being a pseudo-adult. It is grocery shopping while still being on a meal plan because you have no idea how to actually eat three healthy meals a day and Chex mix is on sale and the Swiss chard in the produce section is too pretty to pass up. It is navigating a lot of first moments while having the safety of having an RA to call. It's far scarier in some ways than actually living on your own; safety nets are great but they remind you how close you are to falling.

My roommate set a small fire in a contraband toaster we had in our dorm suite at the end of spring break. "Hanley, there's a fire" I heard her say and my stomach leaped up faster than I did. This was one of those pseudo adult firsts. Why don't dorms come with fire extinguishers? Why did I never consider that toasters were banned because they, while seemingly innocuous, are a total fire hazard? There are moments when you're starting to be an adult that totally shock you at how unprepared you are.

My first response to an electrical fire was to fill a cup of water and dump it on the toaster. Thank goodness Emma knew enough not to do that. Unplugging the toaster and frantically airing out the suite so the fire alarm wouldn't go off was one of the most harrowing moments of my life. My gut was twisted and as I watched the small fire burn itself out, I wondered why I could be so calm and cool until things burst into flames. In chem lab I was the one who was ready to smother out the fire with the special blanket kept on the wall. I was always the one who crossed on crosswalks with caution and kept Neosporin in my purse. Yet, when confronted with an actual adult moment, I balked.

It's hard to have one toe dipped into the water of adulthood. There is still so much that your parents do for you. I pay the phone bill for myself every month and I know enough about bills to know that they have to be paid on time, but at the same time the idea of ever having to pay a mortgage or the electricity bill, or anything beyond what I already do is a little daunting.

Honestly, I'm scared to leave the safety net of living in a dorm. It's like I'm living in a nice experiment, where I have to cook for myself sometimes, and clean up after myself, and use enough common sense to survive, but I'm still in the protection of my carefully selected habitat. I wonder if I'd thrive as well on my own, outside of the college bubble.

I couldn't wait to grow up as a kid. The idea of the college bubble wasn't even enough freedom for me. I equated being an adult with freedom. I wanted to make my own decisions about eating a tray of brownies at a time or wanted the freedom to stay up late. This weird, pseudo-adult stage of my life is showing me that this idea I had of adulthood was a total childhood fantasy. Adulthood is responsibility.

Now, for me, a control freak, this isn't a total deal breaker. I like the idea of working and having responsibility. It's hard to imagine being fully responsible, though, from this lukewarm place of just starting to be an independent person.