If you were here last year on this day, then you know I have a thing about birthdays. I get very contemplative on my birthday. I evaluate the past year(s). This year is no different.

This year I turn twenty-eight. I am two years away from thirty… How on earth did that happen? I mean ten years ago I graduated high school. That is just freaking crazy!

How is it ten years have past since I legally became an adult and graduated high school but most days I still don’t feel like an adult. I mean, like I said before, I am two years away from thirty. I am pretty sure you don’t get more adult than edging your way to thirty. I have officially started the journey away from a young adult.

So, that brings me to the question that has been rolling around my brain. When do you begin to actually feel like an adult? I have experienced a lot of life in the past ten years. Some good and some, not so much. But none of those experiences have made me feel like an adult. Do you feel that way once you get married? When you have kids? When you buy a house? (all things I have never done)

There have definitely been moments in the last ten years that I have felt more grown-up than others. Like making the decision to move to Florida and then again when I had to make the hard choice to move away. Being in the throws of things with my moms battle with cancer has for sure made me feel more adult most days. Being asked to come back and work for my old company and being the go-to person while people were out, definitely made me feel like a real adult. But they have all been just moments. It’s never been a moment that happened and that continued into my every day thinking.

So, maybe that is the thing. Maybe even those of us that seem to live more “grown-up” lives they truly don’t feel that way either. Maybe we never truly do. Maybe we feel that way in moments. Because honestly, who defines what being a grown-up or an adult is? I mean I bought a car. Adults can do that. I have voted. Adults can do that. I have bought liqueur. Adults can do that. I live on my own. Adults can do that. I pay bills. Adults can do that. I do many things that other adults do and yet at twenty-eight I still feel like I am still on the cusp of being a full fledge adult.

I mean when I am eighty years old will I still feel this way? I think I might. Because I will know that there are others who have gone before me and still lived longer and/or experienced more life. Adulthood is an experience more than a feeling. We all just become adults in our own form. Like with most things in life there is no right formula for being an adult and making you feel like one. It is mostly just a concept of what society tells us it should look like.

And maybe it’s best to never completely feel like you are an adult because you loose the innocence, joy and mystery that comes with the feeling of being young. It’s something we should always cling to. I’m pretty sure the Bible even mentions something about us being like little children. So, if Jesus is telling us that, then my guess it’s okay if we don’t always feel like we are adults, even at twenty-eight.

Another year has gone and another is beginning. The moments aren’t always pretty but I am so very grateful that I get to celebrate living another year! Here’s to 28!