Ever since I was 12 years old, I have always wondered what it was like to be “grown up.”
Being the runt of my extended family and the oldest of my joint family, I had numerous predisposed perspectives to figure out.
My older cousins — who left for college once they turned 18 and nagged at my aunts and uncles claiming they were adults — set my reasoning that adulthood started once you were 18. This was because my family had always categorized this by age.
It made sense. You leave home, get an apartment and become responsible foryourself and your finances.
Today, I am an 18-year-old college sophomore and rent my own apartment. I am, in my 12-year-old mind, officially sent off into adulthood and can say that I am “grown up.” To my disposal, I didn’t realize being an adult was more complicated than age, and there was confusion in feeling adult-like and not considering myself an adult — yet.
And it was kind of my fault, as I felt invincible when I was 17. I skipped my junior year of high school and was ready to move out and start my life. I moved into the dorms when I was a freshman.
The structure of the dorms my freshman year gave me a false sense of security, still feeding my invincible mindset of an old teen. It was not until the end of my freshman year when I started to look around me, at what options I had for the summer and next semester.
I now sit in my new apartment, riddled with the pressure of finances, groceries, work and school, on top of the question: “What do I want to be when I graduate?”
I may be overthinking it, and it is usual for every new apartment owner to go into panic mode. But I really want to know one thing. What is adulthood, really? Is it categorized by age or maturity? What gives it the right to have so much power over my mind? Why is adulthood so special? In my eyes, I blame every children’s book that talked about saving adolescence, and boomers that save it as a question for every family reunion.
I don’t think adulthood is categorized by age. I think it is just something that happens.
I know everything is never as scary as it looks. These were wise words from my mother she told me before I went into elementary school, and it is something that still travels with me today.
It is OK to not have everything figured out. Everyone knows this, but they still get sucked into the wormhole of “what ifs” and “I can’t.”
Life sucks, but adulthood sucks more.
Life’s only constant is change. It’s horrible and stomach churning. The only advice I can leave right now is that as long as you do what makes you happy, then everything becomes less intimidating — and life is really good at making things look intimidating.
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected]