Once a student hits that junior/senior year of high school those "hashtag-adulting" memes start showing up everywhere. You look at them and laugh a little bit because they start to make sense, but not really. It is around this time many students start seeing doctors on their own, because they have their own mode of transportation and job to balance. That, and mom is just done with your crap, saying "you are a big [insert gender specific child term] now, you need to learn to do this on your own!" and no amount of complaining about your hurt tooth or stomach is going to make her schedule that appointment for you. Eventually you finally submit to the infinite wisdom of mother dearest and conquer your fears of talking on the landline to a stranger. Somehow you make it the doctor's office in one piece, sign yourself in, patiently wait for the nurse to call you back to run the initial doctor-y things, wait patiently again for the doctor to come in and some how convey your pain to him. After ten minutes of sitting, talking and being *cough* violated *cough*, excuse me, examined, by the doctor, he hands you a paper, which apparently gets you medicine, you leave and call mom again to find out where to take this piece of paper. After you drop off the prescription you go to a parking space to take that post-doctor's appointment selfie and post to Instagram, Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr and your Pintrest board that you decided to start last week titled "#adulting" when you called to schedule your doctor's appointment. And instead of a parking space it is actually the next red light.

Fast forward a couple of years and you're a sophomore in college. Your adulting game is strong, you now can make it to your doctor's appointments on your own with not so much as a hiccup. You have likely even now changed doctors on your own to. Time management is a concept you have learned to develop, even if you include ten hours to sleep and say "I can do my homework on Sunday because a two-thousand word essay only takes an hour or two to write, right?" A part-time job has some how been achieved and it is something good, something you like and you put another tally in that "Successful Adulting" box. Whatever your measure of success is for a class whether it is "D's get Degrees" or an "A" for that pretend Xbox Achievement for real life you are passing. Laundry, while it may not have a mother's touch, gets done when you finally run out underwear; clean and folded laundry just means it is in a pile or basket and you just sift through it until you find what you want. Your tuition and car payments are on your radar -- they might not get paid till the last moment, but they are done and paid, even if that means ramen dinner for a week until your next pay check.

Before any "adulting" task there is that apprehension, "Will I do this right...should I call Mom to make sure?" and be rest assured most moms will help with the advanced adulting tasks like taxes and health insurance (as far as helping sign up, maybe not pay for it). After each task you successfully complete, you get a little giddy, excited, like when you were a kid and win something. You are excited and happy that things ended well and did not blow up in your face. After a few instances of successful adulting you ask yourself "Is this what adulting feels like, that back-and-forth of trepidation and excitement with each task that comes and goes?" To be honest, I don't know. I imagine it will be like when we were kids, each time we feel excited after a success, it takes something bigger or different to get that "giddy success feeling" again. If you can remember the first time you used the "big-boy (or girl) potty" by yourself, you were probably pretty excited and really wanted mom and dad to know you did that well; but you don't call mom and dad and tell them with excitement every time you poop, at least I hope not. If you play sports, scoring a goal or point feels good even if you lose the entire game, next time you score it does not feel quite as good because now you need to win to be really excited. Or in video games, you beat this game, got in that tier or reached that level, your just about giddy, next time you meet an equal achievement you're not quite as excited, you need to go further or beat another game of greater difficulty.

I imagine life is like that, filing taxes successfully the first time is exciting, but then over the next few years it becomes just a normal thing to do. This year you are really excited about entering a serious relationship, in a few years you have that same feeling for renting or buying your first apartment, really living by yourself for the first time. Then it is getting married and moving in together, another few years pass and seeing that "positive" on a pregnancy test strip you have that same "adulting" feeling. You begin recognize that giddy feeling as pride, seeing your kids graduate high school then college, and go through the same steps you did. I imagine sitting in a bed in a rest home thinking back on life, proud of the life I lived, giddy as the first time I pooped on my own as toddler.