Feeling like an adult

[Emiliana]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/88944/

I went off to college in a new state at 18 and moved across the world for two years from 21-23, but I can pinpoint the beginning of my real, actual adult life to a two-week period of time when I was 24. I'm sure I felt like an adult at various points before then, but that's when everything kind of coalesced into real adulthood.

An inciting incident, you might say, was when my grandmother went into the hospital and we thought she was going to die. For various reasons I was the only family member who was emotionally and geographically able to drive down to be there. I'm the baby of the family so it was one of the first times I needed to take care of my family in a major way instead of them taking care of me. Even though she recovered it was a very sobering experience.

Right after that, Marx and I said we loved each other for the first time, I got seriously drunk for the first time (to counterbalance the sobriety of the previous incident?), and I began to come to terms with the fact that my faith was gone and it wasn't coming back.

[yayfulness]

I think of "adult" as more of a process than an event. On the one hand, I'm a married man living hundreds of miles away from the nearest family support that isn't my wife, I'm attending graduate school, if you average my age and my wife's age you get 29, I'm taking out student loans and handling car payments and rent, I've talked to both of my parents about how they want their end-of-life arrangements handled... those are all very adult-worthy things. On the other hand, I have no kids and after nearly three years of marriage the thought of having them still weirds me out. I've never had a job that required a college degree.

So, I definitely feel like I'm sort of an adult.

But. I could have a kid pretty much nine months from whenever I want to. How is that even legal?

So no, I definitely don't feel like a full adult yet.

[Portia]

Darn Millennials, get a mortgage and off my lawn

[bobtheenchantedone]

I started feeling more like an adult when I realized that our household's combined income was more than my father has ever made in a year.

[NerdGirl]

I'm 34 and I have a mortgage and a lawn and I'm a doctor and I know how to drive and I still don't feel like an adult.

[TheBlackSheep]

My girlfriend and I are going to Florida for her spring break, and to this day whenever I buy airline tickets or book hotel rooms I'm surprised I'm allowed. Like someone is going to tell me this is frivolous and to grow up.

[Portia]

I'm 34 and I have a mortgage and a lawn and I'm a doctor and I know how to drive and I still don't feel like an adult.

I rent and therefore have no lawn and might even move into a co-op that seems frankly hippieish and I failed o-Chem and I can't drive but I still feel like an adult? Because I am one? (I dunno, maybe it's just the crushing weight of responsibilities, decisions, and paths not taken talking here. The part of being a grown-up I always dreaded.)

Also, I thought there was a relevant quote in Kate Bolick, and my bookmark is in this page and it's highlighted in purple: "But I can't erase the fact that the first day of my adult life was that morning in May [October in my case] my mother took her last breath."

... Yeah, that.