Throughout the course of my life, I have been watching all of the adults around me. They all seem to be able to enter any situation and take care of it with ease. All over the place there are adults raising successful families, keeping jobs, and keeping the world turning. I've always been dreading the day when I would turn into an adult and have to bear the brunt of life on my own.
Now, I'm 18 and going to turn 19 in less than a week. I just started my second semester of college and have been living on my own since late August. Since I've been here, I've been (for the most part) buying my own supplies and making sure that everything that needed to be done got done.
I feel more like an adult now than ever before. I have been beginning to feel like I could be ready to take on all of the challenges that I've seen people around me taking all my life. I could hold a job, get an apartment, maybe even start a family. None of this seems too crazy anymore. But here's the thing. I don't feel any different than before.
I have always thought that there would be some significant event during the course of my life that would teach me everything I'd need to know to be a functioning member of society. I thought I would wake up as an adult one day and be ready for the world ahead. I'm the same as I was before, just with the added realization that most of the adults out there have no clue what they're doing. They're just making it up as they go along.
We learn from these new experiences and all of the people around us. We teach each other what we need to know to contribute to this community. The parents learn just as much from the child as it does from them. Everyone starts somewhere.
