I don't think people should go straight from being teenagers to being adults. I just don't think it's fair to gloss over those in between years -- between when people begin telling you that you're an adult and when you realize you've actually become one.
I think we should have teenagers, then in betweeners and then adults. I can't speak for everyone in my age category -- and probably not everyone my age feels like this -- but it seems like there's a group missing from the titled phases of aging.
I know I'm not a teenager any longer, but I don't feel like I'm a full blown adult yet either. I guess, on paper, I am. But I always believed that becoming a true "adult" was supposed to be accompanied by the feeling that you could adequately take care of yourself and whoever else came along. And see, I don't feel like that. At least not yet, anyway.
There are just so many things that a person in his or her twenties has to get straightened out. It's like... when you're born, you know nothing about the world you land in, and you have to start from scratch and pick up everything as you go. Well, I feel like that's happening all over again. Like after college I got dropped into a new world again, and I'm learning everything as I go.
There is a lot that you don't have to concern yourself with when you're a child. Or even when you're in high school or college. You may choose to, but you're not really forced to until later. And then you start seeing everything from a totally different perspective. Going to the dentist isn't just going to the dentist any more, it's scheduling and working out insurance. Dinner isn't food any more, it's grocery shopping and budgeting and deciding whether you want to pay with cash or a card. And sometimes, people aren't just people any more, they are their ages, and what they do, and whether or not they're married, and where they went to school.
What makes a person an adult? A greater will to deal with responsibility? Knowing how to take care of oneself and others? Understanding more about the social and public systems? Doing things you don't want to do just because you know you have to now?
I think this is one of the hardest phases in life. People this age are granted access to practically everything, but it can be hard to get a firm grip on all of it. Jobs, relationships, housing, family, money, life in general, and even ourselves. Persons who are much younger or much older look at people in my age group and are supposed to think, "They are in the prime of their youth and should be having the time of their lives." And sometimes, that's probably true. But I also feel like a lot of the older population forgets what it's like to be right here, right now, in this stage of life where you aren't sure about much, where you don't always know who you are or what you're doing, where your life is going, or even where you want your life to go.
Despite everything about the way me and my life looks on paper, I think I'm still an in betweener.
3 comments:
I was watching a video lecture on happiness the other day by some scientist guy, from or at Harvard?, anyway, he was stressing that people are often wrong about what will make them happy and also that we are usually happier with fewer choices and with the inability to alter the choice once made; we tend to synthesize and accept the choices made. Perhaps why many in arranged marriages are happier than those who have the option of divorce? What I'm getting at is that I think modern twenty somethings have nothing but choices and almost always the ability to change those choices, which leads to never just settling for what one has. Maybe a little off topic there....
I've met some very adult children, and very childish adults. I'm in my early thirties and feel very adult and childlike all at once, if you figure it out, let me know! :)
Yeah, I'm beginning to think that it may be inevitable that I continue feeling like half an adult and half a child no matter whether I'm 25 or 85.
That doesn't change. No matter how old you get, you never feel as mentally old as your years indicate. I'm 41 and mostly still think I'm a kid. Except when I don't and then I get depressed that half my life is over and I am still waiting to accomplish things.
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