When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

For me there is a split in the definition of what it is to be a “grown up”. There are actually two tracks. The first one, where you do “grown up things” happened for me when I learned to drive a car. That was the first time.

What’s more interesting to me is the other definition of being a “grown up” which is to say, acting like what I thought was a “grown up” when I was a kid. Getting older I have revised this viewpoint quite a number of times. Working with people who pose as “grown ups” has shown me the truth of the matter, that nobody really does grow up. We change attire, yes, but we never really stop living in our past and conducting ourselves in that way. It’s in the examples that people provide that I find the most telling. Shirking responsibilities, being fair-weather friends, lying poorly for stupid reasons and generally just being a dick to other people because why should you change, why should you be better than that? Indeed. So, I posit that there are few “grown ups” in the world and that we’re all very much the same petulant temper-tantrum throwing children we were years and years ago. Getting older doesn’t mean we “grow up”, at least not necessarily.

I suppose after thinking about it, there is a third part to being “grown up” and that is the dying a little bit and slowly turning into an autumn person. Letting banality, habit, and incuriosity drain the bright cleverness out of you. Giving up. Mostly in terms of idealism, hopes, dreams, and wishes – watching them all dry up, curl into a ball and roll away in the hot dry wind of getting older. I hope I never get to this point. I have often times said to the people who care for me that there are conditions in which if I find myself in them, I must be put down. This is really the apex of that conditional command. I can’t imagine living a life where there is nothing new. Nothing to dream about. Nothing to hope for. Letting life just wander away. To me, that’s worse than death. It’s death while you are still alive. It should fill everyone with dread, however I see people who are riddled with this awfulness every day.

So, one of the three definitions of being a ‘grown up’? I suppose I am not one. I do not wish to be one, at least not like that. I will always be curious. I will always be idealistic. I will always embrace foolishness for that is life.