Aging

On the local news tonight there was some bit about how high schoolers are graduating over the next few weeks and they're finally adults. I made a comment to my mom that that's bull -- There are all these times that you're supposedly an adult (16, 18, 21, 25), but it's all arbitrary nonsense. It has nothing to do with the digits in your age or whether or not you graduated from high school. (Clearly, there are people who dropped out who are now adults, and people who graduated long ago that have never become adults!) Mom asked what makes a person an adult to me. I didn't really know what to say.

I suppose it comes down to a few key traits: A sense of personal responsibility for one's actions, an understanding of one's mortality and flaws, and the ability to be selfish without shame when necessary but unselfish otherwise. Throw in some life experience for good measure. By my own standards, I don't expect to consider myself an adult until I'm 25+. Thirties, probably. I have little portions of all the required parts, but not complete. And I really don't mind.

We're expected to feel like adults too early. Not necessarily be adults -- there are pads in place by society that allow people to be juvenile for as long as they want -- but to feel it. So we run around at 18, 19, 20, crying, "Look at me, I'm all grown!" and then five years later think, "Shit, I was stupid then." I remember thinking I was grown at 16. I remember thinking it at 18 even more so. And now I look at myself from a year ago and think, "Poor girl, she had no clue." I see this same thing in my peers and kids younger than me.

I find it funny that as I get older, I feel less and less truly adult. Well, I suppose it's just that I'm becoming more and more aware that I'm not the adult I always thought I was.