Grown-Up

I had this weird moment last night. I was working on some paperwork at home, and I was lying across my bed on my stomach, work in front of me, legs in the air. And I had this weird flashback to my high school days of doing homework.

And then I had this realization that I am a grown-up. I mean, it's not like I didn't know it before. It's just weird to think about how I went from high school to this 26 year old grown-up. Somewhere in there I started doing grown-up things like doing my own laundry, paying bills, finding places to live, planning my tasks for a job. Unlike high school where you're told what homework to do when, what chores to do when, and everything else is taken care of for you, as a grown-up I have to figure all that out my own. Or I can choose to just ignore the chores and wear dirty underwear. But that'd be gross.

I don't really know how to explain what I was thinking and feeling in that moment. It was just this sense of wonder that the sheltered teenager, afraid to grow up because I might not be good at it, became the me I am today. And it's weird to think that most of my friends are either parents or thinking about being parents. Without warning, I was whisked into the "friends with babies" stage of life.

Now, I'm all for holding onto some of those elements of childhood that make life fun, like swinging and jumping in puddles and coloring and not eating my vegetables. But without me really thinking about it too much, I've added a sense of responsibility to all of those things. I've transitioned into being a grown-up without seeing the transition.