Okay, I am an adult (23) and graduated from college in May. Up until now, I’ve felt like I was in a bit of limbo. After graduation, I didn’t have any full-time job offers, so I stayed at my school-year job (though with a promotion). I stayed in my campus apartment until the lease ran out (mid-August). Around that time I also quit my job–I wasn’t going to be able to have it once school started, anyway. Then I moved in with my boyfriend in the Twin Cities. But now, within the past week I have[ul]
[li]accepted a job offer (yay me!)[/li][li]arranged for car insurance (I’ve always paid my insurance, but it was a policy under my parents)[/li][li]made arrangements to get the car title transferred to me (again, I helped pay for it but my parents held onto the title), get it registered in Minnesota, and get a Minnesota driver’s license[/li][li]looked at apartments [/li][li]signed a lease for my first-ever solo residence[/ul] [/li]
Unfortunately, another part about feeling like an adult is going to the first funeral of someone really close to me (that’s tomorrow). She was old, and had been battling cancer for nearly 2 years, but it still sucks.
It wasn’t nearly as strong, but the last time I felt so independent was the night I moved into my first apartment–it was a workday, so I moved all my stuff myself, then I went grocery and apartment-supply shopping.
I felt like a grown-up when I went shopping for a new stove. This was a few years after I had married and we had bought our own home. Still, Mr. S, who is 12 years my senior, had been the guiding hand in most of our decisions until then. But there was something about driving up to the appliance store, then walking into it in my best wool coat with my purse over my shoulder, BY MYSELF to look at a major appliance for which I intended to pay cash, just struck me as being something my parents would do. <sigh>
It’s odd. Most people I know have these things happen in bunches, like broccoli or grapes…or events.
Congratulations on the upward moves. As for the funeral, it is the capricious nature of life, and I wouldn’t reflect upon it in the same mental breath as all of the changes you’re going through. What if she’d passed away 9 months ago, or 9 months hence? You probably wouldn’t connect her passing with the more uplifting moves in your life.
Wait until the first few days in your apartment, when you realize that barring pissing off the neighbors, you can do pretty much anything you want anytime you want. I really really really miss that! But I will achieve it again!
In my book, there was one defining moment when I became an adult. When I realized that I COULD eat ice cream before dinner, but that I no longer wanted to.
Luckily, being an adult is a transitory thing. I often reverted and had ONLY dessert for dinner. Until the kids came. Now I can only have dessert first if they are not around. Ican’t wait until they are old enough to have established healthy eating patterns and we can indulge on occasion.
Congrats on the new job, apartment, and the new live in boyfriend thing! Good luck! Being an adult rocks.