Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Finally Felt Like A Grown-Up

As the title implies, this past weekend I finally felt like an adult. You see, John and I have been in school for a very very long time. John is currently in grad school working on his M. Div and will hopefully be finished in 2 years. Even though we have been grown-ups (paying bills) throughout our time in school, something about continually making plans around an academic schedule sometimes has us feeling stunted. It doesn't help that society has various ages for when a person can do something. 21 to drink, 18 to join the military, 18 to vote, 25 to rent a car, etc. It takes a long time for someone to reach an age where they are no longer restricted by age to do something. 

In my mind adults have kids. I have always thought I would feel like an actual adult when I am in charge of taking care of another human being. I explained this to my father, who insisted that he at the age of 54 he still doesn't always feel or act like an adult. I suppose adulthood is all theoretical anyway. Some countries consider adulthood to begin at ages 13. It was only in the last 100 years or so since people commonly married at 18. Needless to say feeling and being an adult do not happen at the same age for everyone. 

This weekend I was on my way to Houston to a continuing education course for work. Upon arrival at the hotel I checked in and quickly changed. I was picked up by one of best friends from elementary school for dinner and drinks. She is an attorney working for a law firm in Houston. Seeing her looking all lawyery (professional and elegant) it hit me, "Geez, we are adults". I played on the swings with this kid at recess, played with animal erasers, had sleepovers with ridiculous amounts of candy, talked about boys....you name it. There I was looking at us in the mirror while we were talking about careers and kids. It was the craziest thing to see this person I have known almost my whole life and to realize how far we have come and where we have gone. I'm not sure this gal knows how special I think she is or amazing she is so her being an awesome attorney is not surprising, but us being so grown-up is sometimes. 

Friday my BFF and I went to day one of our training which was a 10 hour day. This friend and I became instant best friends in 2008 in our undergrad program for speech language pathology. We have been inseparable since then. Her and I spent so much time talking about what it would be like to be practicing speech language pathologists, what we would we specialize in, where would we work, what populations would we work with, etc. And here we were in Houston studying yet again. It was really interesting to think about far we have come. After our insanely long day we met a friend of ours from grad school for dinner. Over dinner and fro-yo we discussed our jobs, plans for the future, colleagues, treatment, travel, etc. It was an amazing dinner. I guess for me some of it was strange because 3 years ago we were discussing how we were going to pass the exam and still have a great time at the Harry Potter premier at 12:00 am. 

Ideas of when John and I would have children never crossed my mind at that time because it seemed years away. John and I were more interested in where careers and travel would take us. Our friends were getting engaged and married and now our friends are having babies. John and I never thought we would be foster parents. Now half of the conversations John and I have are about kids and foster care. I know these life changes are not a big deal, but it was just something interesting I couldn't help but think about. No matter what kind of plans you make you really never know where life will take you. So yes right now I feel like a grown-up, one with a plan. I am sure once children walk through our doors, my plans will walk out those same doors. I am sure it will include sleepless nights of me wondering if I am or ready to be an adult. I imagine in another 5 years I will have yet another (as John would say) an existential moment that will look nothing like I think it will now.