So the other night, I was hanging out with one of my best friends on her porch. Often times we drink beers and talk about stuff when we're sitting out there-high school, college, friendships, her kids, etc. That night, she started the conversation off asking me if I felt like I thought I would at this age when I was a kid. I was like "no," and she asked what I thought I would feel like, and I said "an adult," heh. She said she didn't feel the way she thought she would at this age, either; she remembered looking at her aunts and uncles, and thinking, "these people have it together. They know what to do, and they're confident in doing it."

I pretty much said that, the more life I live, the more I realize no one else really knows what to do all the time, either, especially when I've talked to the people who have been much older than me that I worked with. Also, talking with my brother about things all the time; he has a lot of the same insecurities and anxieties that I do, and he's the one who's always been my hero. Every moment takes effort, and there's no point where you can just go on autopilot, like I used to think. She thought her aunts and uncles made it look easy, and I reasoned that that's because they were authority figures to her. They were the ones who took care of her back then, so everything they did probably seemed like the reasonable thing to do.

In fact, I remember thinking that about authority figures growing up, too. As I've gotten older and they say something, however, my propensity to think, "I'm not really sure I agree with that/that that seems reasonable to me..." has grown. My aunt, for example, posts a lot of extreme political stuff on facebook... I don't follow her anymore, lol (though I am still friends with her. She responds to some political things I post and is like "I think this!" And I don't respond; I'm just like, "that's cool, auntie.")

We also talked about how sometimes, we feel like we're still 10 years younger than we are, but then we hang around people who are actually ten years younger than us, and we're like, "...yeah, you're totally a kid. I'm totally not." I hear stuff people much younger than me think or say sometimes, and I'm like, "I remember thinking like that. I remember feeling passionately about that, like you obviously are right now," heh.

So yeah; it seems like a slow, gradual change that crept up on me, but I also don't feel like I thought an adult should feel; I just feel more world wary, patient, and maybe more self-confident than I did ten years ago. I also feel like, as I said above, there's no point that I can really just turn it off and be on autopilot, either; I gotta take this stuff seriously.

So, I guess the question I'd ask is, do you feel like an adult? Do you feel like you thought an adult should feel when you were a kid? Are you there yet, or are you still trying to get there?