So Am I An Adult Now?

Hi world. I have questions. 

Next week, I will turn twenty-three. I pay my own taxes, I have a job that by all accounts makes me an adult. I have a driver’s license, I lived abroad for a year and a half and managed to succesfully keep myself alive. But I still have a youth discount on trains and in museums. I still sit at the kids table during family parties. Sometimes, colleagues mistake me for a pupil instead of a fellow teacher. I have friends who live on their own, I have friends who are engaged or married. I even have friends who have their own pets! So are we adults now? What’s the bar? Is it a threshold you should pass, or is it a sort of percentage that just builds up slowly over time? Paying your own taxes? +5 adult points! Living on your own, +30 adult points. And what if – hear me out – I don’t want to be an adult? What then?

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait until I was grown up, until I could make my own choices and go my own way. Until I could be an adult. (Honestly, I was a very stubborn kid according to the stories. Six years old Merel fully believed she was sixteen years old instead. And when my parents would ask two-year-old me to give a hand to cross the street I would clasp my own hands together and give a hand to myself.) Is there such a thing as being born an adult and becoming a child? Not that I was an adult when I was a kid either. You don’t want to hear about all the stupid decisions I made. But then again, does being an adult mean you no longer make stupid decisions? Will I be considered an adult the day I no longer decide that running through nettles and brambles on bare feet is a good decision? Will I reach that full percentage of adultness the day I no longer end up on the ER with the most stupid injuries you can imagine? And what if that day never comes? (Because, honestly, that is a very valid question from my side. I once ended up on the ER with a concussion because I bashed my head against a couch too hard during a game night. Believe me when I say that everything is possible when it comes to me). Can I be an adult while I stay up until three AM to read gay fanfiction? Can I be an adult while I stay up until three AM to write gay fanfiction?

Growing up, people make it seem like being an adult means having it all figured out. You’ve got a stable life, you know you have a stable life. Tomorrow isn’t a question, but a certainty. Nowadays, the internet has made it clear that that was either a lie or the younger generations simply missed a mark somewhere. So, which one is it? Did we all simultaneously give up on the notion of adultness, or did it never exist? Because I might be an adult on paper, and I might find myself agreeing with all those haha-I-spent-my-friday-night-crying-on-my-bedroom-floor-I’m-so-grown-up-memes, but I swear to God my parents might not have it all figured out but they sure have it more figured out than I do at this moment. Probably this could be attributed to the fact that my future plan at the moment consists of:

1. packing a bag and hiking for approximately 50 days
2. having a passport
3. having a certain amount of money
4. period

So, maybe, the entire notion of adultness is based on having life plans that go past the next six months and are more detailed than hey I’ll start this hike and who the fuck knows what’s next. But I can also say with absolute 100% certainty that I do not want that kind of life right now.

Having said all this, I think my final question is this:

Am I an adult now? Or can I decide to be a non-adult a little longer? Something in between being a kid who doesn’t really know the world yet and somebody who is legally obliged to make sane decisions?

Adult or not, I’ll take the freedom and possibilities, but I think I’ll stick to insanity a little longer.