When I turned 18, my initial thoughts were consumed with the idea that I was finally an adult. Of course, I celebrated my legal birthday at the fearful beginning of a pandemic, so I can’t honestly say becoming an adult was the only thing on my mind. Still, it felt like one of the few monumental birthdays one celebrates in their life didn’t feel as life-changing as it should have felt.
“Maybe when I turn 19,” I thought.
I blinked, and there I was: a college student celebrating her last teenage birthday. Just like the previous year, the idolization of being an adult was atop all my thoughts and feelings but only momentarily.
“20 will feel different,” I convinced myself.
About a month ago, I anxiously experienced my last days as a teenager and welcomed my twenties–hesitantly–with open arms. This time around, I didn’t even consider the idea that I was an adult.
“I’m just a kid.”
With the academic year coming to a close, I think I can speak for myself, other students, and graduates when I say that it feels like we’re living our own season finale right now. We’re saying goodbye to our friends who accepted jobs in cities miles away, we’re watching our roommates leave our shared space for the last time, and we’re anticipating the unknowns that the summer and fall will bring.
“What’s next?”
Well… as I’ve reached the point in life where I delved into deeper conversations with the quote-on-quote “adults” in my life, it seems like the “What’s next?” we’re searching for is actually the present moment.
The other day I sat down with my parents and asked them when I’m supposed to start feeling like an adult who had my life together, like themselves. That’s when I learned that the “adults” I’ve strived to be like my entire life still feel like they’re teenagers trying to figure everything out.
It seems that there comes a point in life where we have to accept that what we feel in the current moment is our life, despite whether we truly feel like we fulfill the nonexistent “adult” label. We’re all here on some huge planet in the same, yet extremely different, places.
Maybe this realization is what causes so many graduates to experience their first mid-life crises. We may come to school and learn, make friends, grow, and temporarily feel all-knowing compared to the lost freshmen on campus, but, deep down, we’re still a teenager with no idea what’s to come.
So, do we ever really become “adults?” After asking some so-called “adults” their thoughts, I’m starting to think that no one ever really feels like an adult. Instead, we become someone who, slowly but surely, begins to feel a bit more confident about what they’re doing in life.
I don’t think anyone ever really knows what’s happening or what’s to come in this mystery-filled game of life. And that brings me some peace. So if you catch me stuttering after being asked: “How old are you?” it’s because I’m just a 17-year-old in a 20-year-old’s body, just like every other “adult” around me.