A friend of mine is having a birthday this week and tweeted that she wasn’t looking forward to her upcoming birthday. When I replied that she should, because birthdays are awesome, she said that this was the first birthday where she felt old. (She’s turning 36.)
This led to a discussion about whether or not you ever feel like an adult.
I don’t think I ever will.
Oh sure, I live alone. I have a house. I take care of a dog. I work. I pay my bills. I get excited when I have money left over to put into my retirement account. I have discussion about wanting kids on a first date. I’m responsible for actual work projects when people actually report to me. And all of this goes well.
And then I forget to do laundry and have no clean socks. Or stay up drinking until 4AM on a Wednesday night (not that that happened recently or anything…)
But I did all of those things when I was 20. Well some of them. I had way fewer opportunities to get excited at 20 about putting money into my retirement account, but I had one. I didn’t live alone, but I did pay my own rent. I didn’t want kids then either. And I constantly forgot to do laundry.
I can’t possibly be an adult until I figure out how to do that, right?
