When was the first time you ever felt like a grown up (if ever)?
I forgot that this prompt is a repeat and that I answered it on this day last year. Looking back, my answer is still the same. This is what I wrote then:
I put question marks after “grown up” in the title of this post because I’m 42 years old and I really don’t think I’ve ever felt truly grown up. I have done grown up things and I have had grown up things happen to me, in fact I’m writing this post from a house that I own sitting next to my husband and watching a grown up movie on a cable service that I pay for after coming home from a job that I worked and got paid for all day. Certainly those are all grown up things, but I also drove to a restaurant to pick up our take-out order for dinner and listened to songs on a playlist that I created that were all popular when I was not yet a teenager (“Ice, Ice Baby” anyone?). Listening, and frankly jamming out, to that music on the short drive gave me a giddy kind of feeling because those are songs that I really liked “back in my day”. It’s that giddy kind of feeling when I see or hear things from my childhood that contribute to my sense of not really being an adult. I don’t feel like I’m old enough to do or have all those things I listed at the top of my post. What do you mean you’re calling to confirm my mammogram appointment next Tuesday? How am I old enough to need to schedule one of those already? I still feel like I just graduated high school. But I don’t even think that fully explains how I feel because I know what kind of person I was back then, before all of the adult things started happening to me and we’re not the same. Maybe it’s simply a general feeling of youth. It’s youthful energy that makes my heart flutter with excitement when a familiar childhood/teenage favorite comes up next on my playlist. I’m certainly not complaining about any of this because I think it’s important that we all hold on to this feeling of being young for as long as we can. That’s what makes being a “grown up” not as bad as it probably could be.
I think I would also add that what has contributed to me not feeling like a grown up is the fact that I have a very supportive husband. I met him when I was just out of high school. He loved me and took care of me when my mental health spiraled out of control. By then, both of my parents refused to help in any way. I couldn’t do it alone. So he was there. And he’s still here. I don’t have to make adult decisions alone. We do it together. Which leads me to believe that I don’t feel grown up because I’m not alone. I think “grown up” has a negative connotation in that you really feel it when the adult decisions you have to make wear you down and make you feel stressed or anxious. I haven’t had that experience because I’m not out here struggling alone.
Recently I’ve said that I feel like I’m aging backwards. And I really do feel that. As I’m getting more and more comfortable being who I really am, I feel wild. Sort of. I blast music in my car, I wear fun stuff from my youth. I’m getting all the tattoos I have always wanted—got a new one yesterday by the way. I’m doing all the things now that I couldn’t do when I was younger. Mental illness and a soul-crushing job aged me fast. My 20s were not the same as others. I was only 22 when I started teaching and by that point, I was already settled into a quiet, slow kind of life. Nothing wrong with that, but that was also the point where I began to stifle that “wild” side of me.
Now that I’ve been healing and have gotten to the other side of that job, I feel that part of me wanting to have its proverbial day in the sun. The best part of it is that I’m experiencing it all as an adult. I have adult money for the tattoos I’m collecting. I don’t have a curfew or really any other rules that have to be followed. I can do what I want.
As an adult though, I do have to consider the responsibilities I still have…bills have to be paid before I schedule the next tattoo appointment. I have to get up on time to go to work. All of that makes me a grown up, but I swear I still don’t feel like one. And that’s ok.
Leave a Reply