The Daily Post has asked us…”When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?”
I can actually remember this one quite clearly. I did not feel grown-up at eighteen when I registered for selective service or to vote. I did not feel grown-up when I married at nineteen just before my twentieth birthday. The grown up feeling did not arrive with the birth of my son or my daughters. I really expected to feel like an adult at these major junctions of life but somehow they just left me feeling more like a kid than ever. The sense of “am I ready for this?” And “Wow! I have no idea what I am doing.” really popped out big in each of those moments and made me feel decidedly un-grown up.
All those years I wanted to feel “grown-up”. I hungered for the feeling but no matter how hard I tried I just could not drum it up. I worked. I provided. I acted like a grown-up (mostly). I just never felt like one. Then on my thirty-fifth birthday it hit me. It came unbidden without fanfare or any kind of life-changing event. I blew the candles out on my cake and just knew. “I’m a grown-up” or maybe it is better to say I just knew, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
Strange to say, from that day forward I have wanted nothing more than to return to childhood. Funny how that works isn’t it?
Lillie-Put 