Saturday, July 30, 2011

Signs Im getting older

I am 24, 25 in November, and I am just now starting to feel like an adult. I guess technically I've been considered an adult the day I turned twenty and was no longer a teen. However, as any 20-? year old can attest to, people don't really treat you as an adult at that age. Maybe my perspective was skewed since I didnt feel like an adult but regardless, I'm starting to feel it now.

When you're younger you're always carded when you order a drink. People at the tire place think you don't know what an oil change means. You're asked, "what do you want to do for a living?" every time you're introduced to an older adult. You're lucky if you can get a job since you have "no job experience". Employers take advantage of you because 'you're too young to know how business works'. People stare at you when you go out to eat with friends because you're expected to be loud and obnoxious.
(Don't get me wrong, I was recently in college and understand that people in that age range can be some of the above, however, not all of us are screwballs.)

Now I find myself being bombarded with people assuming I'm ready for this adult stuff. The loan people no longer think you're this cute college kid with no money but now expect you to be rollin' in the big bucks and ready to hand it over. The questions are no longer about what I want to do for a living but have changed to, "so when are you having kids?", "buying a house?" etc. I haven't been carded in a year and at every interview I'm expected to have had all this job experience that was hard to come by at the time.

Me and Justin just bought our first vacuum (we've been borrowing-don't think we're that nasty) this past week and when I was at the pool I got so annoyed with these 'young hooligans' who wouldn't stop talking loud and kept blowing their nasty cigarette smoke my direction. In these moments I found myself thinking, "wow, my perspective has sure changed." Now that I feel a little bit of the other side I am trying to remember to be one of the good adults, the ones that give younger people credit where its due and who tries to understand instead of criticize. I know I'm only 24 but with all the bills to pay, loans to payoff, errands to run, interviews to be at, I hope I can gracefully bridge the gap between kid and adult within myself.

"A grownup is a child with layers on."- Woody Harrelson

"Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well, I won't do that."- Walt Disney

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