a hesitant adult
The new year is coming soon, perhaps it's time for me to get back into blogging on.. time itself.
turning 30
In this new year, I will turn 30 according to the calendar. This threshold from the twenties to the thirties feels as serious as it is arbitrary. A few of my friends have already crossed it and reckoned with it, evaluating the state of their personal and working lives.
Towards the end of my graduate degree, my advisor asked me if I had any age-related goals, like "have a baby by 30" or "become a professor by 35", something like that? I stared back at her blankly. It was a reasonable question, but somehow this never occurred for me! Somehow, I just can't take my age so seriously.
entering adulthood
Still in turning 30, it feels I am now entering a state of undeniable adulthood. It's odd because I am not really sure what is adulthood.
Are you an adult after you get married and have kids? Then do those who chose to remain single or child-free never experience adulthood? Parenthood is not the same as adulthood.
Could it be when you become truly independent and responsible for yourself? That feels like an odd metric as well. Some people live with their parents their whole lives and continue to depend on their judgment. Most of us depend on the approval of some community to support ourselves emotionally and financially. Are hermits the only adults?
Perhaps it happens when you reach certain age, such as 18 or 21 or even 30? This is the rather pragmatic legal definition, yet it has always felt arbitrary to me to have such a cutoff. Some justify it based on when the brain supposedly stops developing, but in truth it never really stops. About 700 neurons are born each day in your hippocampus until you die.
In my view, adulthood is a state of mind. It is about explicitly making choices for your own life and accepting their consequences.
You may live alone or with a partner and parents. You may not be completely independent. You may not even be "old enough". Still, if you are reasoning through your life and making your own decisions, you are in a state of adulthood.
but feeling like a teenager?
By this metric, I've been an adult for years now. Still, I can't quite shake the feeling that I'm a teenager in this almost 30-year old body?
A big part of this feeling is likely due to only really living as woman for the past year. My fashion sense is still developing, as are my social skills from this side of the gender divide.
Another part is that there never was a coming-of-age ceremony where anyone in my family recognized my rise into adulthood. Some of them don't really see me as an adult still, and this really did affect my own self-perception. I wish there was a strong signal, like the elimination of the kids' table at thanksgiving.
So here I am now: a hesitant adult. In the new year, I will be one year older, one year further along the journey that is adulthood.