About a month ago, I said goodbye to a friend who graduated at the end of fall semester. Although we hadn”t known each other for long, she quickly became a consistent and important person in my life. As I watched her prepare for her new life with a full-time job across the country, I was struck by so much all at once – the happiness that comes with seeing someone you care about succeed, the sadness that accompanies watching college friends come and go and the concern for her well-being and my impending descent into adulthood.
With my last year of college only a semester away, the idea of graduating and actually entering into the “real world” often terrifies me.
As someone who took a year off of school before going to college, I like to pretend I”ve glimpsed the fabled “real world” of my youth – the dangerous, scary, cut-throat environment in which only the quadratic formula or the ability to recite a Shakespearean sonnet would keep me safe.
Corrin Bond
Argonaut
However, I know that the year I spent living in a small town with family while working at a coffee shop most definitely won”t be the reality facing me post-graduation.
For anyone who also fears the idea of moving away and having to talk salaries with people in suits, it”s important to remember that there is no specific definition of what it means to be an adult.
The Atlantic recently published the article, “When Are You Really An Adult?” in which they asked their readers to comment with their thoughts regarding when they felt like they became adults.
The responses varied wildly. Some older readers said they still didn”t feel like adults while others as young as 20 claimed they felt as if they had reached adulthood.
Society as a whole often defines adulthood with series of mile markers – goals that people accomplish on a linear timeline. Many readers who responded to The Atlantic”s prompt had reached those big life events and yet they still didn”t quite identify as an adult.
One anonymous commenter said, “I am a mom, have three elementary school aged kids, married (unhappily, unfortunately), and I still feel like I”m growing up.”
Another said they found it “revolting” when they heard people in their 30s and 40s claim they didn”t feel like adults.
The truth of the matter is, adulthood is a subjective, personal experience.
Being an adult doesn”t necessarily mean entering into a permanent career, buying a house, getting married and having children.
Some days, maybe while grocery shopping or filing taxes, you”ll feel like a mature adult while on other days, maybe after calling in sick to work and spending the day watching TV and eating cereal, not so much.
As one of The Atlantic”s readers, Maria Eleusiniotis, aptly put it, “At 28, I can say that sometimes I feel like an adult and a lot of times, I don”t … my ducks are not in a row, they are wandering.”
It”s OK to feel like a mess and it”s OK to not have a plan all of the time. At the end of the day, it”s important to remember that there is no exact definition of what it means to be an adult.
Whether you”re a first year, a senior, a non-traditional or a graduate student, try not to stress too much about the future – being an adult means whatever you want it to mean.
To me, adulthood means being able to give yourself the grace to make mistakes, to not have all the answers and most of all, to not be afraid of letting your ducks wander.
Corrin Bond can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CorrBond