You know the epiphanies that occur during the sometimes awkward transition from college to full adulthood? We call them Second Puberty.
This last week, as my oldest friend Kara and I were enjoying our gelato and watching the awkward 13 year-olds next to us, we realized that we both recently had moments where we discovered that, holy begeebees, we are officially becoming real adults.
“On May 27th, I become an adult. I have to get my own car insurance policy.”
My parents’ car insurance just came up for renewal, and since I am no longer a student, or their dependent, it’s now high time to get my own policy. While there is something exciting about this step towards full-fledged adulthood, I am still a little bitter that my monthly premium is going up and that I now to have be a little more careful about the amount of impulse take-out food I consume. It’s just one of those unfortunate slaps in face by the sands of time saying “add another grown-up thing into your monthly budget.” The moment I realized I had to get my own car insurance policy was the moment I wished someone had handed me a manual at my college graduation titled “Welcome to the Real World: A Guide To All of the Transitions You Will Be Making That Turn You Into an Adult.”
“I can’t prepare Thanksgiving dinner, that’s for adults!”
At the end of the summer, Kara is moving about 2,000 miles away from the only town she has ever called home. One of her fears about moving is that she will have to make Thanksgiving dinner for herself. I completely understand her fear. Despite the fact that I have helped make Thanksgiving dinner since I was tall enough to reach the counters, the idea of making it entirely on my own makes me a little nauseated. It’s not so much the cooking that had us in agreement, but the idea that making your own Thanksgiving dinner means that you are starting your own traditions, and your own life. You are no longer the young adult who follows the instruction of someone else, but are the adult who makes the instructions.
The ticktock of the giant life clock in the background is rapidly reminding both of us that sooner, rather than later, we will start making our own holiday traditions, and being forced, one car insurance policy at a time, into becoming real adults.
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