Being an Adult

As a coxswain, you're used to doing things your way. Control, Balls to the wall, everything is strategic and deliberate. So when people aren't quite doing things similar to your timetable, it's a bit arresting. 


This isn't a commentary on Young Adult, although Diable Cody is pretty bad ass. But, I was certainly not the first in my high school graduating class (all 33 of them) to get married, have kids, or own a home.

Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that if you compared all the full-time jobs my class currently holds, I probably make in the lower third. I also have a below average credit score thanks to a ton of student loans, and thank God I work from home, or else my car might effectively kill what little budget I have allotted for myself. 


In high school, I took a quiz on determining your "inner age" mentality. Mine was 32. That age is still 6 years away. As much as I feel like I have grown up, I'm in no hurry to fill the family void. Most 32-year-olds kinda want to be "a little further along in life" than I am right now. 


As another aside, my inner age prevented me from doing all the immature things people do in college. Drinking, partying, you know, all the immature things most people think I'm doing now...




The Unlost: Wait...When did I become an "Adult"


The Thought Catalog: When Am I Going to Come of Age?


If not a family, then at least a career?


I would give anything to know where my career is going to take me, mostly so I can prevent it and turn it around before its too late. There's a whole sociological study on my generation and our hesitance to settle down until we find our purpose/passion/real-goal-in-life, etc. I really want to get a Master's Degree, but I couldn't tell you what I'd like to get it in. I know what things I like and things I'm pretty good at, but having enough "job experience" to actually be hired to do them is a completely different story.


I'm not making excuses for why I'm not making close to a six-figure salary at 26, but at least I'm making a salary. I can't tell you how much crap I've gotten from former classmates who are now stay-at-home moms. Sensitivity to family values is not something I lack. If it's your choice to stay home and raise kids, then own it. It's my choice to work and be selfish for my entire 20s, and I own that. Oh, Britney Spears, not a girl, not yet a woman.

It's not easy being a 20-something coxswain...

Instead of all the "grown up" things I don't have, I appreciate what I do have: a wonderful relationship with a guy who wants to stick around, one (and only one) credit card that I gets back to zero every other month, a steady and secure job, an appreciative volunteer leadership position on my resume. I can cook better than most new wives, and can time-manage like a Franklin-Covey graduate. 

I do contemplate what type of parent I'd like to be, and what I'd still like to accomplish before that time. Resolutions and goals have allowed me the time to get a move on things, but the more I accomplish, the more I want to push things further and further off. Vicious cycle, maybe? 

So, maybe I'm not an "Adult" in that sense. Settling down has such bad connotation these days. Although, I do have a 401K, and own stock, and I did just nicely fold a fitted bed sheet on my own. What else am I missing?


So from someone who does things deliberately, with strategy and planning, I will strategically take things as they come. We're not all in the same boat, after all...