Last Step to Adulthood

I’ve never really understood the fascination with a formal age of maturity. It seems to me that regardless of the age we set many individuals will fail to fit that standard. I’ve know wise and thoughtful teenagers and reckless and imprudent people of middle age. No matter what rights of passage we create to try to prove we’ve reached adulthood, each is a poor attempt to codify something that can’t be easily defined.

Consider me for example.

According to any objective standard I reached adulthood long ago. Take your pick from:

• When I celebrated my 18th birthday.
• When I celebrated my 21st birthday.
• When I got married and started my first full-time job at 22.
• When I started my “real” career at 26.
• When I bought my first home and had my first child at 27.

No matter how you look at it, I’ve been a certified adult for +/- 20 years. And yet I will tell you that I had a stark realization last weekend that I had finally taken the final step into adulthood.

This crazy idea of midlife adulthood came courtesy of my 25th high school reunion. Most people carry some baggage from their time in high school and as I was approaching reunion I decided that I wasn’t going to let my 18-year old self go. I was adamant that if I was going to go at all, it was going as the me of today, the person who can walk into any room and engage with anyone about something. I was going to hang out with a group of adults and try to forget that I had spent my most awkward years in their company.

My husband wasn’t sure I could pull it off. He reminded me about how unhappy I had been after my 10th reunion as he looked me in the eye and said, “Are you sure this is a good idea? You don’t have to go.” In a heartbeat I knew that I could spend a night surrounded by my family, safe and loved and comfortable. I had a hundred excuses I could use to make a graceful exit and I knew there would be no judgement or worry. But I also knew something else. Every single time my husband has given me permission to give up it’s been a signal that I’m doing something hard and important. And so I looked at him and said, “Nope, I’m going to go. I think I need to go.”

I got in the car and I drove, by myself with no back-up plan and no safety net. I walked in and found the first person I recognized. I got a drink, had some dinner and then circled the room. I knew in minutes that I shouldn’t have worried — my classmates are fabulous people who have unique and inspiring stories.

I talked with a woman about adopting a puppy that her aunt had found in the middle of the road, a puppy who by alerting a passing car had saved her litter and mother who were off the road in a ditch. I talked with a man who told me about his journey to find a true home in the mountains of Tennessee and I saw his pride as he shared the apirations of his daughter who would someday be a pediatric surgeon. I talked to many mothers, including women who had children soon after graduation, women navigating the challenging waters of being a stepmother, and even a woman with toddlers she considered an unexpected gift. I talked with people about working too hard, medical challenges, websites, dissertations, and hobbies. I was never bored.

Over the course of four hours I felt the last vestiges of my 18-year old self drift away. She had no place in that bar, moving among the tables of interesting and engaging people. When I left that night, after a prolonged good-bye with a woman who I hadn’t known in high school and but who now made me promise to visit her home, I felt truly comfortable. I stepped out the door and into the night with one idea in my head.

“This,” I thought, “is what it feels like to know you’re an adult.”