A great question

[cjsmith]

stolen from evilegg

What makes you feel really adult?

In the "I can't believe I'm getting away with this" category, my first responses were:

• Checking into a hotel with someone to whom I am not legally wed.
• Changing the landscaping around my house. It's not a rental -- I can pull all that ivy and put nice flowers or lawn in if I want to.
• Heck, saying the words "my house". (Until I ran out of money and chose to sell, the words "my airplane" were like that too. I mean really! I was allowed to purchase an airplane.)

Then there's the "Yes I do have responsibilities" category. Paying bills is like this. Taking sick kitties to the vet -- and, once, having to make that heartwrenching decision to euthanize -- definitely reminds me of my responsibilities. Entering into business contracts with random people hundreds of miles away is like this (oddly enough, my day job doesn't feel like this).

The "I have learned something" category defies description sometimes, but it's the one that brings the most frequent reminders that I'm an adult. I'll read something someone else wrote, or see someone do what I would have done ten years ago, and I will realize that I am definitely not twenty-five any more (much less seventeen). Usually I am very grateful.

Comments

[deyo.livejournal.com]

Die, ivy, die!

For me it was plunking down cash for a new motorcycle. :)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Things that make me feel like an adult have included:
learning to drive (Thanks, Case ;) )
deciding to stop attending college after 17 years
planning two road trips more or less alone (that's just this summer, mind you)
"starting a family" (when Casey and I got DJ)

Oddly, things that haven't helped my "feeling like an adult" were getting married and getting credit cards.

I feel least like an adult when I try to ignore something important (the IRS, a bill) and hope it goes away, or when I stare at mess or chores and know they need doing and that staring at them won't get them done.

[firecat]

What makes you feel really adult?

The times I've realized that I can hurt someone else.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Checking into a hotel with someone to whom I am not legally wed.

*nods vigorously*

[wcg.livejournal.com]

For me, it's doing things where I'm the responsible one. That might be getting up early when I know I could go turn over and go back to sleep, except I've said I'll be somewhere. Or taking time off work to watch one of my daughters in a school performance. Or going out to investigate a fatal accident when I was on active duty...

The fun aspect of being an adult would include things like getting in my car to drive some hundreds of miles to see one of my darlings, knowing I'm responsible to myself, and that I'm paying the insurance, buying the tires, and paying the car payments. Not to mention the activities that will ensue when I get there.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

There is nothing like registering your own child for Kindergarten to make you feel adult. I mean, there you are, walking down the hallways of the Elementary school, with all the projects on the walls, and the signs pointing the way to the bathrooms, and the drinking fountains at the height of your knees (and my knees are pretty darn low to the ground, folks!). It definitely makes one a bit dizzy. Probably is much worse if you are registering your child for the *same* school you attended as a child.

I think the first time I started to feel "old" though was the time shortly after dreamervictoria came to live with us and I found myself using the phrase "when I was your age...". Gack. I can't say that without devolving into a quavery old-lady voice.

[firecat]

That didn't make me feel like an adult. It just made me feel like I was me, over 18, and thus able to get away with something new.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That brings out multiple shadings of this question: "what makes you feel like others now perceive you as an adult and you therefore get certain privileges of adulthood" versus "what makes you see yourself as adult or grown-up or responsible".

[akienm.livejournal.com]

A couple of the ones that have been jarring lately:

Realizing that we were teaching a workshop at a major conference (Loving More)

Realizing that I could do the dance I did at dawnd's birthday

Realizing that we had become, to some degree or another, community leaders

Realizing that one of my girlfriends was younger than one of dreamervictoria's boyfriends.

For some of those, how they made me feel grown up isn't exactly clear to me...

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

I think I noticed it because the first time I did it I was in my mid-30s.

[firecat]

I was 18. My boyfriend and I had wanted to take a Toronto vacation the summer before we went to college, but I was still 17 then, and the parents said no. So we did it over Christmas break instead. His parents invited my parents over for drinks while we were gone. My parents said that felt really weird.

I guess the semi-disapproval of so many parents was what made it feel like we were getting away with something instead of being adults.