I always assumed that adulthood meant buying stocks and getting married. I assumed that to be an “adult" meant that I would have to learn how to work from nine to five, pay rent on an apartment, and maybe have a few babies while I'm at it. However, I have recently discovered that adulthood not only came a lot more quickly than I had anticipated, and it also entails knowing how to do all kinds of random things that I would never have expected.

While I am now, officially, paying rent on my first house and paying taxes, adulthood is defined by both more and less responsibilities than I realized. Adulthood, as well as doing your own dishes, also involves aspects like buying a meat thermometer, and making sure you don't undercook your chicken, and remembering to get toilet paper regularly so things don't get uncomfortable. Adulthood means figuring out whether you are willing to vacuum weekly, or whether you really should fork up some cash for a cleaning service. Adulthood means all kinds of random tasks that I not only don't know how to do, but also never even realized I would have to do.

Adulthood also, by definition, means you are not a kid anymore. For me, this entails no longer living in my childhood home for extended periods of time and not seeing my parents for longer than a few weeks at winter break. So not only do I have to do this multiplicity of random tasks that, it turns out, encompass adulthood, I also have to figure out how to do them largely on my own. No one is teaching me how often I have to go buy toilet paper or how willing I am going to be to regularly vacuum. I am on my own to figure out how to function.

While that is an intimidating prospect (what if I make a mistake and undercook my chicken?), it is also so incredibly necessary to becoming a real person. Adulthood is less about all the random tasks than it is about trying to figure out how to do them on your own. If I had Mommy or Daddy holding my hand and helping me learn how to accomplish every little thing, would I really be self-sufficient? The learning curve is what defines being an adult and the mistakes made are necessary to the maturation process.

Although I may be terrified to discover what new random aspects of life I have yet to realize and try to figure out, I also have faith in my ability to deal with them. Maybe adulthood is less of a place of being, and more of a process of getting there. After all, am I more "adult" when paying my first set of taxes or when I'm having my first child? Am I more adult when I am investing in the stock market or undercooking my chicken? I believe that the learning process to becoming an adult not only never ends, but also defines adulthood. Even if we never really get there, we can always take pride in the fact that we are en route.