Age is a chronological number based on the number of years since a person’s birth that acts as an indicator for what stages of life they’ll be led into. Through aging the elusive concepts of babyhood, childhood, and adulthood are born. All made up social concepts that allow for the roles one may assume, all of which carry complexity that defies the understanding of many. The most complicated stage of all: adulthood.
People become adults when they behave like adults. But what does it mean to behave like an adult? At what point in our life do we become adults? Is it age that plays the role of naming us, or is it our maturity levels? Is it our accomplishments that set us apart and lead us to the path of adulthood? Is it bearing children, or having a job? Or is it the act of moving away, leaving behind our childhood within the walls of our bedroom in our parents’ home?
Age is not the measure of adulthood. People may be considered adults because they legally are, but the actions one takes are usually what others use to measure.
Reaching adulthood involves taking full responsibility for your life. It means becoming independent in many aspects, most importantly, financially. It may mean living on your own, living by your own actions and by your own rules, or buying groceries without your mother at your side. It’s hauntingly daunting and undeniably scary.
Even so, adulthood is not a paved road or set in stone kind of path. It’s rather slippery and shifty; one has to figure it out on their own.
When I was younger, I assumed I would know everything when I became an adult. A child’s eye learns to see adults as god-like, all-knowing figures because of the many more years they hold in comparison. However the older I’ve gotten, and the closer I’m getting to legally becoming an adult, the more lost I feel. The more undecided and isolated the act of conceptualizing independence becomes. An experience that seeks out more out of you.
Even so, age is indefinite to the concept of becoming an adult. Just because you legally are an adult, it is not to say you have to follow every practical standard set rule. It does not mean you need to move out of your parents home. It’s a proposal. An indicator that a part of your life is over, and that the future is waiting out there for you. You are now responsible for the actions you take; it forces you free. But you may also be frightful.
Adulthood is a wavering path that at some point we all will have to travel down. It’s a part of humanity, an act that life has given a course to. You do not have to know what way you are going at every step. It doesn’t mean you need to know everything and know all. You are not a machine and adulthood is not a book you need to master at deciphering. It is the desire to move forward and the mystery of not knowing. Plans don’t always end up falling through in perfect shapes to cover the cracks we’ve made along the way.
Adulthood is a concept that accepting requires maturity. Reaching adulthood is not the end of a childhood. It’s the next big step for the children we have transitioned from to lead the next. Age is not what defines you as an adult. Don’t feel worried if when reaching the point in life that dubs you an adult, you feel unlike one. But, also don’t be frightened to reach that stage of life. It does not have assigned emotions, or experiences.
There is no way one can feel ready or feel “adult enough.” It is a maze we must follow, one that we have built on our own, measured and designed by the people around us, our desires and dreams, and the people we have learned to become and have fought to remain.
