KelCor Grows Up

Plenty of people will tell you that at age 18, you are an official adult. You can vote, you can join the military. If you’re Macaulay Culkin or my very mature high school friend, Rebecca, you can get married.

When I was 18, I had kissed exactly three boys. I had never made myself a doctor appointment. My dad did my taxes, my mom still gave me gas money. I was afraid of driving alone at night.

Was I an adult at 18? Ha. I know 12 year olds now who are more mature and worldly than I was when I graduated high school. Maybe YOU were an adult at 18, but I had just gotten my braces off.

Ok, then how about age 21? You can drink, you can get into clubs, you will definitely be tried as an adult if you commit a felony. By this age I was cooking and cleaning for myself, paying my own rent in a crappy apartment, working my arse off in college, and attempting to make big decisions about my future. But I still didn’t feel like a grown up. Grown ups had careers, houses, a car they paid for themselves. They were married, had kids and dogs. I was just a little baby with student loans and a Mercury Sable I kinda stole from my parents. Everything I wore was from American Eagle. I could not imagine that real adults would wear American Eagle.

The last age I hear about is 25. For some reason, we have collectively decided that being able to rent a car is the last stop in the road to adulthood. And ok, the first time I rented a car, I must admit I had never felt more responsible and independent. Someone let me borrow a whole-ass CAR? That is wild. I was so worried and careful. I drove below the speed limit the entire time.

I am now 42 years old. In May, it will be TWENTY YEARS since I graduated with my bachelors degree. At 22, I really didn’t know what the future held. I graduated with an English degree, but was unsure what I was going to do with it. Work in a library? Write? Go to some kind of graduate school? I had just broken up with my handsome college boyfriend, so feeling extra lost and confused, I retreated to my parents’ house and my comforting childhood bedroom.

Welp, after 20 years I feel MUCH more confused and lost as to my path in life, by a magnitude of 500,000. I have wandered: had lots of jobs, dated a whole bunch of dudes, moved to a few different states, but always found myself back here in Utah. And guess where I’m living right now? If you guessed my mom’s basement you are right, but I’m a little offended that you went there immediately.

I have some theories as to why I have never been able to really find my place in life, but at the top of the list is this: I am not good at being an adult.