WHEN DO WE BECOME ADULTS?

Hello and welcome back!

I haven’t been writing for ages- due to the lack of time, but also because I haven’t had anything to write about. I started in my new job about a month ago and I’ve been enjoying it. Although it’s not my “area of expertise” I still feel that it’s going to be useful for my future career.

I’m about to move out from our current apartment tomorrow and I’ve been packing my things the whole past week. Tinja moved out today and I’ve been hanging out all by myself in the big apartment. This is not a massive change in my life since I just happen to move to a different part of the city. I’ve always liked my own company and I think that it’s a good thing to finally live on my own. I’ve always had a flatmate before so I think this change will be good in the long term. But at the same time, it made me think that does living alone makes you even more “an adult” than before. Are there certain things, habits or age in life that makes you an adult? Or can you be a child forever?

Comparing to my other friends who are still full students and enjoy going out often, I feel like I’m past that time when going out all the time is fun. I don’t know about everyone else but these days even two glasses of wine give me a horrible headache the next day. Also when everyone else wants to go to a bar- all I want to do is get McDonald’s and go to bed. My boyfriend calls me “a good student” or “conscientious student” because I don’t go out as often as my friends do- which is weird because I used to do that a lot. I focus more on my studies and I also started reading a lot of books again and became very nerdy. When you are focusing more on intelligence than what you look like and being social, is that the kind of thing adults do? Or maybe I just became boring.

I feel like becoming an adult is something everyone can feel personally. I think we acknowledge that we’ve become more independent and detached ourselves from our parents. But I don’t believe we become adults overnight. And you’re ABSOLUTELY NOT an adult when you turn 18. I feel so embarrassed about so many things I did back then. But instead of regretting doing all those things, I value them because they have taught me so about learning from our mistakes and acknowledging that they have their part of making me who I am today.

I’m about to finish my degree in 5 months or sooner (hopefully) and I’ve started thinking about my future a lot. After graduating I probably do some work for a while and apply to do my Masters in the UK. When I studied there I noticed that the style of teaching is much more suitable for me and I prefer the student culture in there. And of course, Fraser lives there. But it takes another year before I can start my studies and I need to practice Academic English so much before going there. Doing plans for the future feels like an adult thing to do! Overall I think it’s going to take years before I can start calling myself an adult, I would say that I’m in a “getting there” phase where mistakes can still be made and calling to mom to ask advice is a perfectly fine thing to do. In my boyfriend’s words, we’re still “adults in training”. Do we know when we get there? Or is being an adult just another word for being “smarter than before”. But even becoming an adult seems like an inevitable thing that's going to happen to all of us, I suppose that if we would keep a little bit more of childless in us, the world would be a much less serious place to everyone. However, I’m looking forward to seeing what the future is going to look like and how becoming an adult suits me.

I hope you’re all healthy (still)!