Twenty Seven: Transisition to Adulthood

Cereal lover from age...4?

There comes a time in every? Woman’s life when she buys a leather belt and some blue jeans, and hitches them up a little higher than she’s always worn them, and decides she’s going to start acting like an adult. If not in every woman’s life, than it at least happened in mine. Today I turn twenty seven, and this is the year, I've decided (and realized), that I am an official adult.

Many of my friends and peers have passed this threshold well before me, leaping across with mortgages or babies as their vaulting pole. But I've been dragging my feet in a sort of young-adult-hood mentality for several years since graduating college, despite the fact that I thought that receiving that degree would automatically enter me into adulthood. I considered myself a real live adult for a few years….but it wasn't until a few months ago, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and did a double-take, wondering who that woman was looking back at me, that I realized the true transition was about to take it's form. 

While others my age have been breeding babies, and taking regular 40-hour-week jobs, I knew I had a lot more self-discovery before I could settle down into something like that. I had places to visit, people to interact with, and adventures to embark upon. Not that going on such adventures prohibits adulthood, but doing so with an acceptance of the possibility of failure, a habit of making selfish decisions,  and the knowledge that you can always move back home doesn't necessarily build the pillars of independence. … (This link explains my hesitations)

The best Texas gittup I've ever owned. 

Maybe adulthood is about responsibilities, or about compromising the things you love with the people you love. I often think about the irony of my 12-year-old self looking forward to the ‘freedoms’ of adulthood, only to look back now at the relative freedoms of being driven places and have everything paid for and planned out by someone else. Still, being an adult isn't about having bills to pay…or not having fun. It’s about being the me I always wanted to grow up to be. And this is the year I'm starting to feel like a real 'Grown-up'.

For the past 5 years or so, I've spent my birthdays reflecting… I actually spend a lot of time reflecting. Reflecting on my current actions and habits, and what I hope to do differently in the future. I would binge on cake at a party and think, “I won’t do this next time/in the future”. Or I would  go to a party that I didn't really feel like going to, just because I felt like I should, and then wish I was at home reading. But this is the year I'm taking control. There is no next time. There is only right now. And I'm going to own that.

Egads! 10 years ago. 

Happy birfday to me. :)