I remember it like it was yesterday. Unfortunately, it was nearly 20 years ago. Ugh, that hurts to even write. It was the day I uttered an unthinkable, unimaginable, but undeniable truth. And it was the phrase that made me realize my “adulting” had officially begun.
I was 20 years old. My best friend and I were sitting on the steps of his college apartment, reflecting on our fleeting college years and life itself. In the midst of our pontificating, we got on the subject of adult responsibilities.
Here we were, just a few years removed from High School, on our own, far from home. The freedom we had sought through our teenage years had now been found.We had our own apartment. We made our own decisions. We chose what we would and would not do, and no one could tell us no.
But it turned out that all our freedom wasn’t very freeing at all. In fact, it felt more like bondage!
We found ourselves longing for the days when Mom did our laundry, put food on the table, and kept us on our daily schedules. Now it was all up to us. We even had to keep up with money and bills! The list of responsibilities was endless! When did we become adults and start so much adulting?
Then, it hit us both all at once like a lightning bolt of reality. A mind-bending truth that knocked our socks off.
I looked at my friend sitting across from me on those concrete steps and said it out loud–the unthinkable, unimaginable phrase that can only be uttered by an actual, true-to-form adult…
“Wow, Mom and Dad were right all along.”
“Yup, our parents really did know what they were talking about.”
“We just grew up, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, I think we did.”
At that moment, we both knew our “adulting” had officially begun.