I have twenty-seven days until I can write "BA in Psychology" on my CV, until I don't have to take another midterm ever again, until I can no longer reap the benefits of being a 'student,' and until I have to go out into the real world and function as an adult human. I can't tell if I'm afraid or not.
All things considered, I am actually quite pleased with how many things I do which could categorize me as a 'grownup,' and I've become increasingly more aware of my adult-isms as I've been teaching kids and teens music over the past several months. Remember when we were wee, and we looked up to people in their early twenties? We thought that they had their lives together. They seemed like they knew what was up. They seemed very good and cool and great and exciting, and I was struck one day with the startling realization that I am that early twenty-year-old human to these kids. To an eight-year-old, I seem really old. It doesn't matter that I don't have retirement savings yet, that I still have to give myself a pep talk before calling the dentist, or that I still haven't figured out how much sleep I actually need. I don't live with my parents anymore. I drive my own car. I buy my own cereal. I buy my own milk. I pay my own bills. I dictate my own bedtime. I am filled with knowledge that I get to impart onto them, and that's really rad. I was puttering about under the impression that I'm only really a pseudo-adult, but maybe I sort of know what I'm doing after all.
Yesterday, after moving all of the furniture my coworker bestowed to me into a storage space, which I rented all by myself, I started thinking about all of the ways we are actually equipped to go about in the world. A very lame trope that has plagued our thinking is that people our age don't have a clue what's up, and I reject that entirely. Have you met all of the beautiful twenty-somethings who have multiple jobs, schedule doctor's appointments all by their lonesome, and cook actual meals for themselves at night? There are loads and loads. I think that as a generation, we sincerely need to be taken more seriously as functioning members of society. More importantly, we need to take ourselves more seriously as functioning members of society. Why do we sell ourselves short? Just about everyone I've spoken to about graduation has told me that they aren't looking forward to having to properly 'adult,' but, y'all, I'd like to argue that we're doing a much better job at it than we think we are.
Every time I make small talk with a barista, or send out a rent cheque, or remember the directions to a place, or buy gas, or buy lettuce, or drink black coffee, or hear a mother say to her child, "say 'excuse me' to this lady" as they're passing by, I become more empowered by the fact that I have a handle on things. I'm okay. I might not entirely understand taxes, or have mortgage payments, or know that the word 'mortgage' actually has a 't' in it, but I am content with the idea that I am doing better than I think I am most of the time.
So, my fellow pseudo-humans, savour that time you buy a plunger, or pay for your pal's dinner, or make moves towards a Big Life Goal without calling your parents. We're rolling. We're rolling. We're moving. We're gonna get through this weird tumultuous transition period as proper, bonafide grownups. We're already much further along than we reckon.
