“BIG”

As a child, you dream about being a grown up. You imagine what you will look like, what kind of career you will have, what kind of car you will drive, and all the things you will do and obtain. You make big plans for the day that you are finally big enough to have everything you wanted. At least this was my belief, growing up I woke up everyday knowing that I was one day closer to being “Big” and having my dreams come true.

The events that we anticipate announcing our arrival into adulthood, ironically enough, never follow through with the promise of knowing more and being able to answer the great quandaries of life. Graduations, Marriages, Births, and Deaths, these are the things that you anticipate declaring your arrival in adulthood. Almost, like you show have a neon flashing like hanging over you head that reads ADULT, and people will acknowledge and accept this, and somehow respect you more, because you're in the club now. I'm not quite sure how I developed this idea, but repeatedly, milestone after milestone, I find myself waiting for that "AHA" moment, when I can say “I am now an adult”.

I initially thought my high school graduation would be the big moment. In high school I worked hard enough to earn good grades, participated in anything that would look good on a college application and worked a part time job, because my mom could barely afford to keep a roof over our heads. I moved out when I was 15 and bounced from friend’s house to friend’s house, until Graduation. The day came and went in a blur, I gave my final speech as Senior Class President, and that is about all that I can remember, aside from feeling a little let down that I didn’t feel like I had done anything. That summer, as I prepared to go to college, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out when exactly I would be accepted as an adult.

In college, I worked tirelessly to pay bills and get through with school so that I could start my career. Again, I participated in sports and clubs on campus, anything that would help build my resume. As graduation neared, I began anticipating my entry into the real world and adulthood. The day of Graduation, I packed up the last of my dorm room and said my good byes. I celebrated finally being done with school and moving into my first place with my college sweetheart, but I still did not feel like an adult.

Sadly, even now the “AHA” moment still eludes me. And, like most women in their early-twenties, I try to analyze the situation and figure out what I did wrong. "Did I miss something? What could I have done differently?" I replay all of the events leading up to the moment, hoping that I will find some indication of what went wrong and why I don't feel any different. I furrow my brow and shake my head in frustration, “I'm not sure what I could have done differently”, “I believe that I would have still ended up at the same result”.

Now, a few years later, I’m married and about to embark on a new journey as my husband finishes his degree and we consider moving and starting our path. I know that I am exactly the person I was intended to be. And like the flash of a camera, in that instant, it hit me. There isn't one big moment, or culmination. It was every single experience leading up to this moment. Every subtle change, every laugh, every tear, every hug, every person, everything that I have seen, heard, touched and felt, that makes me “BIG”. It's not about that one moment but about everything I encountered to get here. All of the situations, both bad and good, and the decision to not allow all the set backs to prevent me from obtaining my dreams.

Life is a never ending learning process. You spend most of your childhood waiting to be an adult, wishing away childhood, expecting a moment of acknowledgment of your arrival into adulthood, so you can finally do the things you have been to young to do. You arrive at each milestone expecting to feel, maybe even look different, more mature, almost like a philosophical change of cloths. Only to discover you look and feel exactly the same as you did moments before, only now you are left questioning much more, asking yourself "When will I feel like an adult?".

Like all things in life, becoming an adult is a gradual process. I'm not sure about other people, but I have days, where I catch myself saying to myself, "Huh...today I feel like a grown up". I sit back and think about it for a while, running over the how and the why of the statement, trying to put my finger on the exact moment when it happened. The conclusion I come to every time, is that I don’t really know if I am now or ever will be an adult, and if I am…I’m not so sure that I want to grow up.