#Im.still growing up how to

#Im.still growing up how to

I start to think maybe I’m getting it down, but then I’m faced with a situation that I’m sure everybody else my age would know how to handle - yet I’m clueless, a novice, even though I’ve been a technical adult for years. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of that “real adult” feeling, after a particularly grueling day of meeting obligations, but it’s always fleeting. But that makes me feel more washed up than grown up. There are times when I definitely feel my age, like when I talk to a college kid who was born the year I graduated from high school. I may appear to be one of them, but really I’m just putting up a façade, and I’m waiting for someone to point at me with narrowed eyes and yell, “Impostor!”

But I look around at my fellow adults and get the impression that they’re “real” and I’m not. I look like a grown-up and am entrusted - no, heaped - with actual adult responsibilities every day with four children. Yet here I am, still feeling like I’m walking around in shoes that are too big. When I became a homeowner.Īny day now, I thought, I’ll wake up and feel like I’ve certifiably got my shit together, like I’m finally worthy of being taken seriously. I waited for it when I hit drinking age (even though, okay, I may have experienced a little backslide in maturity at that point). I waited for it when I voted in my first election.

I waited for it when I moved into my first apartment. I always thought that once I reached some certain magical age, I would feel legit. The problem is, I’m still waiting to feel like one. I carry ibuprofen in my purse.įor all intents and purposes, I appear to be a real live grown-up. I have a job and bills and clip coupons and make doctor’s appointments and gripe about current events and my back hurting. My kids gape at me when I tell them I was born before the internet and can remember when we had to stay tethered to the wall while talking on the phone. I have childbearing hips, fine lines on my face, and gray strands in my hair (I like to call them “age highlights”). By all accounts, I am a full-fledged adult.