A couple of days ago I passed the halfway mark to 28. Yikes.
That seems old to me, however it doesn’t feel old to me. I still feel the same way I felt five years ago. When I was little that number seemed to have a lot more reflection on how I felt than it does now.
When I was a kid I had this weird vision of what it meant to be an adult. In my young mind, being an adult primarily consisted of three major (awful) things: paying taxes, paying the heating bill and understanding how fax machines worked. In retrospect, I really wasn’t all that off.
I remember when I turned 13 and I felt old. as. shit. And I loved it. The braces came off, the padded bra came out, and the lip gloss got even more glittery and sticky. My mom brought pizza to my middle school and I got to choose three friends to come eat it with me in the guidance counselor’s office and I remember thinking, yup getting old is the shit.
When I turned 16 I sat in my driveway in my brand new Honda (previously used by my mom for two years) worrying whether or not I was really ready to drive to school on my own. This it it, I thought, I’m really an adult now that I have my own car. *The car was actually purchased and owned by my parents and could be taken away at any time, a fact they reminded me of quite frequently.
I turned 18 the day I graduated high school. I wrote a poem the day after graduation (because that’s what cool kids did) called “Now What?” that went something like this,
We throw our caps in the sky
excitement fills the air
I look and wonder why
I feel like I should care.
Deep, right? I then went on to turn “Now What” into a 350 page novel about how hard and confusing it can be after high school. It’s good stuff, guys. Someday I should share it on here, I think everyone would really love the “struggle” I went through being a middle class blonde girl from Nebraska.
I feel like no one tells you that even though you technically reach adulthood, that twelve year old with braces and pizza sauce on her shirt never really leaves you. She’s always there. And when I happen to find myself in a room full of adults talking about adult things (which I’ll be honest is rare given my career path) that little girl inside me often feels like a total fraud. She looks around and wonders if anyone else is just faking it, or if it’s just me? Does everyone else really have this adult thing figured out? And if they do, where did I miss the boat on this?
Perhaps everyone else was learning how to be an adult while I was enrolled in improv classes learning how to be a ghost cat on stage. Yes, that may have been where I got a little off course.
Anyway, I need to wrap this up because I have to go send a couple faxes and put on my green visor to do some taxes.
My conclusion is this; getting old is weird, you can either fight it or get weird with it. I know my choice.
Right? I am also halfway to 28, and no closer to feeling like an "adult". I look around at my friends who seem to have their shit together, and I'm just like, wait, where did I go wrong? Was it because I traveled or didn't work hard enough right after college? Or maybe they're just as lost and confused as I am, but they hide it better. Personally I feel like I'm my thirteen year old self with my dorky glasses and braces, but now with a credit card. Keep on keepin it, right? Maybe it'll click by 30. Maybe….
I need to get better at hiding it I think.
"I remember when I turned 13 and I felt as. old. shit.". I know you like when I point out your typos, but I like this sentence better than "I felt old as shit." You felt like old shit? Like hard and cold and not really smelly anymore but still .. shit?
Anyway .. now that I totally laughed way too hard at my own stupid joke at your expense ..
I feel you. I'm 31. What the fuck is that. I feel less and less like I should be an adult. And it's only getting worse. God help me.
hahahahahaha I'm so dumb sometimes with typos. This really did make me laugh. Thank you.
nooooooo you fixed it! DAMMIT! 😉 <3
Hey, I'm 37 and I'm still waiting to feel like an adult. I have glimmers of it sometimes. Like when I got my first Costco card or when I opened a Roth IRA. But generally, I feel like I'm still growing up.
I remember a few days before I started middle school I was talking with my aunt about how nervous I was. I wanted draperately to be a teenager but I still felt like a kid. She told me a story about her first day teaching high school and how she had stood at the front of the room baffled that all of the students in her class actually believed she knew what she was doing. She confessed that even at 35 (or however old she was then) that she felt like the 12 year old nervous for her first day of middle school, the only difference is that you learn to fake it a little better.
I'm 28 and I still feel like I don't have things figured out! I wonder if people can tell that I am a 16 year old masquerading around in an adults body. My hangovers however are adult-like….just can't party like I used too! Hahaha!
i turn 28 in roughly 2 months. im sad about it all the time. It's a weird age, it really is.
I'm older than you by 9 years and I still feel that way. I hear people around me talking small talk and I wonder where they learned to do that and wonder how my sarcastic comment is going to fit in. Or if it'll fit in at all. Or if I'll fit in at all. I kind of have to assume everyone feels this to some degree or else I'll feel compelled to give mass amounts of money to a therapist to help me feel less ridiculous. With Christmas coming up I just don't have the money for a therapist right now. Heck. Isn't that why we blog. 🙂
I've come to the conclusion that you'll never feel like an adult. I just turned 29 and feel like fraud around other adults all the time.
One time, a man in his fifties looked at me at a neighborhood party and said, "have you graduated from college?" To which I replied yes, and he said, "then you're done growing up, you keep doing the same dumb shit, your body just can't handle it anymore."
Getting old is so weird, and yes everyone feels like that and no one has it figured out:) At least that makes me feel a little better:)
Yeah I don't feel like an adult 90% of the time, and the other 10% is when I'm doing something not very pleasant (like making myself go to the doctor or, yes, taxes) and then it's like "Why did I want to be an adult again?"
I'm a mom and I still feel like I'm thirteen done days… So true, we really all are just pretending… Going from one step to the other without really having it figured out.
I don't even wanna talk about how I feel about turning 28 in July. I mean, I still won't be married and won't have any kids. What's the point in aging then?!
I love this post. I recently figured out that no one ever really grows up (whatever that even means). Some people just get really good at using big words (that I will never understand) and refrain from using the word "like". Growing up is overrated and I would rather act like myself/ a little kid. It is more fun.. keeping it professional from 8-5 Monday – Friday is a real challenge.
I really love this post. I always feel like I'm way too young internally for my age (20? what?)…I don't think we ever really grow up. I think some of us just get better at pretending than others.
Xo,
Taylor
acupoftay.com