Being an Adult

It is a difficult thing to define and catalog, when we become an adult. When is that moment that we really are an adult? What really is an adult? In some ways it is a legal age, but the cut off is not nearly the definite.

As a teacher of high school, I have a very rigid code about ages. In terms of friendships, relationships, romantic entanglements, all of it, age, maturity and adulthood are all factors that I weigh very carefully.

When I first started teaching, I was 23 and my students were all 17 and 18. I was clearly (in my mind) older, wiser and more mature than they were, but as I have gotten older, while I still see very clear lines, the lines are differently defined.

Camp created a weird scenario for me. In some ways there is no age up here. We are defined by our roles in camp. There are people that I consider friends that in the real world should be/could be students. Yet, our friendship here rarely is a mentor mentee thing, just an equal footing thing.

A lot of the time, I still see the age lines in my head, I mean I'm a teacher. In today's world it is very important that I see them. I've ingrained that necessity into my soul, but there are grey areas.

The people who are legal adults, but I still see as boys. Sometimes it is hard for me to accept that they really are adults. My father was the one who actually called me on that. I was talking about one staffer who is 23 and I called him a boy. Dad asked his age. I told him. Dad corrected me and said, "That is a man. He is not a boy and you would do well to remember that." I answered, "but he's not finished yet!" Dad said, "That may be true, but neither are you."

I don't think I was truly an adult until the day I got Nana. I was 28 at the time.

I was disappointed this week to find that someone I have been trying hard, very hard, to accept as an adult, really is not. That doesn't mean that they are not still my friend, not still very intelligent and/or not still a wonderful person, but they are not an adult. In this case their age doesn't matter, because it's wrong. They are still not yet a grown-up.

And like I said. I find myself more disappointed than I thought I would be, but oddly relieved as well.