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Did you have any type of "flash" or "aha moment" when you finally realized that you'd become a full-fledged adult?...Even though I moved-out on my own at 18 and got married and had 2 kids and worked I don't think I really felt like a full-fledged adult until I was in my early 30's or so. The transition into adulthood probably started in my late 20's. But it didn't "hit me" until a few years later...During this time I stopped being so self-centered with my parents. I showed more interest in them as people in their own right. (Apart from just being my parents.)....How about you? What was your path and journey to adulthood like? Thanks.
Did you have any type of "flash" or "aha moment" when you finally realized that you'd become a full-fledged adult?...Even though I moved-out on my own at 18 and got married and had 2 kids and worked I don't think I really felt like a full-fledged adult until I was in my early 30's or so. The transition into adulthood probably started in my late 20's. But it didn't "hit me" until a few years later...During this time I stopped being so self-centered with my parents. I showed more interest in them as people in their own right. (Apart from just being my parents.)....How about you? What was your path and journey to adulthood like? Thanks.
Interesting topic! I don't believe I ever had an "aha moment" but I was, pretty much, a "full-fledged adult" by the time I was 22. Married at 18, became a stepmom to a (just turned) two year old and then proceeded to have three more babies in three years, the last one being born two weeks before my 22nd b'day. I had no choice but to be an adult, for sure. It was what I'd been raised to do and, while it was hard sometimes, it was generally pretty easy for me. If I'd have a more mature/helpful husband it would have been better but...
However, having said that, I think I truly reached adulthood in my early 30s, much like you. I have to say that my 30s were, by far, my most productive years. The years I learned the most new things, got my college education and got divorced. I didn't plan on remarrying, ever, so I poured my whole self into being independent, taking care of myself and kids and became the mature woman I should have been. By the time I was in my mid 30s I realized I HAD become an adult. I think I was about 40 when my parents FINALLY quit giving me constant 'advice' and either decided I was "okay"...or they gave up on me, one or the other.
In retrospect I have decided that if there was one perfect age, that I could stand being forever and ever, it would be 35.
Last edited by AZDesertBrat; 07-21-2012 at 03:15 PM..
I'm in my mid-twenties. I've always hung around an older crowd, being more mature than people my age, but I never "felt" like an adult even though I had the general responsibilities of one.
I think it wasn't until I started hanging around people who were a few years younger than me and being really taken aback by their worldview and immaturity. For them, it was completely normal and expected because they were still young, but for me it really highlighted how far I've come mentally and that... well, I must be getting older/wiser.
Also, when my priorities changed from doing things for the sake of having some immediate fun vs. not doing it and working towards a long-term goal. Go out tonight and wake up with a horrible hangover, OR stay in, go to bed, go to the gym in the morning, and work on my portfolio tomorrow? Go on that cruise this December OR save that money for an emergency. Once I started making the "smart" decisions, I knew I was at least maturing a little. I don't know if I feel fully like an adult yet, that might not come until/if I start a family, but I can definitely say I feel a lot older suddenly.
Did you have any type of "flash" or "aha moment" when you finally realized that you'd become a full-fledged adult?...Even though I moved-out on my own at 18 and got married and had 2 kids and worked I don't think I really felt like a full-fledged adult until I was in my early 30's or so. The transition into adulthood probably started in my late 20's. But it didn't "hit me" until a few years later...During this time I stopped being so self-centered with my parents. I showed more interest in them as people in their own right. (Apart from just being my parents.)....How about you? What was your path and journey to adulthood like? Thanks.
That's interesting becaue it never really hit me until I was around 33-34 either to be honest. I think it it is strange because I lived a very frantic lifestyle as a teenager/young adult that brought me to the brink on many occasions but even so I still felt ambivalent towards adulthood and obnoxious in terms of conforming to authority or bearing any responsibility whatsoever on my shoulders.
Even though I had to come to terms with many harsh environments because of my hectic lifestyle incuding one spell of incarceration aged 25-26 I still failed to take responsibility for my own life and I kind of tried to abandon the thought of embracing adulthood also.
I think addiction and alcoholism is an illness that stumps growth mentally too. I thought at one time that I had more of a grip on life than those around me but I realise now that this was more recklessness and a failure to take responsibility than any tangible grip on reality. I mistook insanity and misplaced affection for evolution into adulthood.
What I felt elevated me as a man was more childish stupidity in hindsight than rational collective of thought. When it all came crashing down (as it so often did) I always found myself feeling child-like and in a detached way feeling like I wanted to shut myself away in sanctuary from the world outside. Like I was on a suspension bridge back to normality and that it was okay to screw up because I had plenty of sand in the egg cup from which to draw time. In reality time was ebbing away alot faster than I thought it was. The opening scene in Rumble Fish captures my evolution into adulthood to perfection.
It might sound strange but I think the transition came around the time I saw figures of authority in the News, media and other areas of responsibility and realised that they was no graduation moment and that there was no secret sanctuary where 'the adults' met in a big round table in the roof of a skyscraper away from everyone else to 'make the big decisions'.
I always clung subconciously to this barrier of a child-like notion that the 'real adults' were cut off in a detached, coccooned bubble where they made all the big decisions that as a child helped me sleep comfortably at night tucked up in my bed believing there were people in authority out there looking out for me, my family and the welfare of the world as a whole.
It was more an awestruck reluctance to confront reality than any idealised notion of adulthood. In essence I was hiding from the world and even now I often laugh at star actors who are actually the same age or younger than me who I envisioned as older, more mature 'adults' when I saw them on the TV screen to give me that fale sense of security and feeling of youthful naivety and comfort that made it easier to shelter myself from the harsh realities of life.
I was always very cynical and confrontational towards the established order of things but when I started to notice the mirage of how things are perceived and how they are in reality (i.e. sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things to bad, young soldiers die in wars and children starve in poverty) the more I faced reality and the more uncmfortable it made me. Which is probably why I refused to mature as an adult for such a long time.
I finally realised that though I knew these things for many years these things were a fact of life I finally realised that there was no elightenment, day of reckoning or utopia and that as one famous philosopher once said.................."I can sum everything I have learnt about life in 3 words...life goes on" and that true acceptance of mortality was the final transition unto adulthood and the burden of responsibility I shoulder today.
Last edited by Fear&Whiskey; 07-21-2012 at 04:13 PM..
I didn't move out on my own until I was 28, so it was then. I not only lived alone, I moved several states away from my family, so I was pretty isolated, but it was a good thing.
Interesting post. I realized I was an adult when I stopped over-reacting to situations & started taking things in my stride. It took years of reading self-help books, biographies of famous people & self-analysis to see the big picture & not get caught up with small stuff. When I met someone who reminded me of my former self, I knew I had come a long way. I could clearly see the mistakes I had been making. Also, traveling & meeting people from different cultures helped me realize they are just 2 types of people in this world: good or bad. Nothing else matters after that. That was truly a breakthrough. Happened only a few years back.
Unfortunately some people dont mature at all & its sickening to see them judge people harshly based on so many factors. Most of these people are the ones who wont take much risks & live like a frog inside a well. You have to take the leap outside your comfort zone, outside your like-minded society & experience the not so beautiful world.
First you need to unlearn everything you were taught & then start learning with a clean open mind.
My experience is that there are two basic types of people in this sort of matter.
Those will claim titles for themselves and those who who wait for titles to be bestowed on them.
TV "chefs" are a good example of the first type and w/r/t this thread would claim full fledged
adulthood for themselves the moment they did something adult like... moved out of the 'rents
house or got married or had a kid or bought a house.
The rest just sort of wake up one day with all that stuff arrayed around them...
and wonder where the F it all came from.
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