This summer was a tough one. It wasn’t record-high temperatures or being away from friends that I’d grown used to having around constantly. It was realizing I am in the middle of a massive transition from childhood to adulthood.
Moving out of my mother’s house only a few days after my high school graduation meant that for the last two years, I have constantly been on the go. Working, going to school, moving in and out of apartments, getting new jobs, making new friends – it’s been exhausting. But a gap between leases gave me the opportunity to take a six-week break from adulthood.
During high school, it felt like everyone was constantly reminding us to look to the future. We were told to make good grades now so we can get into a decent college, so we can study hard and get degrees, so we can get a good job to support our families and have a modest retirement plan, so we can die happily.
It was daunting because we were teenagers with limited life experience. How were we supposed to make a responsible decision about what colleges to apply to if we couldn’t be trusted to get dressed in the morning without a uniform policy?
Diving back into my hometown, I found myself constantly being asked about the last two years and my future. When my mother sent me to Walmart, I was confronted by well-meaning teachers from my past who were curious about what career path I was headed for and if I’d been thinking about marriage and family.
These sorts of questions are frustrating because I don’t know who I’ll be in two years. The person I am right now is not a person who wants to have children. But I could wake up tomorrow and want a husband, 2.5 children and a house in the suburbs.
And we shouldn’t deny ourselves the ability to change. In fact, we should be open for opportunities to evolve and grow as adults, especially while we are in college.
I’ll admit that I was disappointed when my eighteenth birthday didn’t include the universe revealing the secrets of adulthood. But in the two years since, I have started to understand how you become an adult.
It isn’t an age you reach. It’s a transition that you’ll be in for the rest of your life. Adulthood is what happens when you’ve experienced tough situations and learned how to handle them. It’s the fifth time you’ve managed not to cry when your electric bill is more money than you have in your bank account. It’s the first time you unclog a sink without having to call your apartment complex’s maintenance to do it for you.
It happens when your experiences have changed you into a person that can handle the problems you’ll be faced with. And when it does happen, it’s a pretty cool feeling.
I know that the person I am right now is not a full-fledged adult. It’ll take a while longer for me to reach the point that I can choose chicken nuggets that aren’t dinosaur shaped. But for right now, it’s okay to be a half-adult.
Jana King is a nineteen-year-old communication studies junior from Ponchatoula, La.