Day 109: Do We Ever Really Grow Up?

Being an adult has its advantages. Sure, you also have to worry about careers, bill paying, healthcare, weight gain, hair loss, hair in weird places and all those other charming effects of aging, but you also have freedom. We get in our cars and drive anytime we want and we hardly think about it. Do you remember when the entire goal of your existence was to get your driver's license? I drive home and sometimes do not remember getting there . . . and I'm sober. I don't remember waiting for the red lights or stopping at the stop signs, but I'm sure I did. I take driving for granted because I've been doing it for so long.

So many things in our daily lives have their roots in childhood or adolescent fantasies. What we do with our money is simply a matter of choice. You can buy your lunch, a sweater, or even a beer. Money when we are young is something we have to be given, or else earn and even when you do earn it, it's not really yours. An allowance has some stipulations. For instance, it is understood that you will not spend your entire allowance on candy, even though you'd like to. Once you get a job you have some financial freedom, but even if the agreement states that if you earn the money you can buy the car, we knew back then there were still limitations. You could not, for instance, should your part-time gig at the movie theater and paper route pay off in a big way, buy a super fast or obscurely foreign car. Your parents will likely direct your automobile purchase towards a family approved option. Fords were big back in the day.

As adults, we simply live and that is often difficult enough, but as kids so much of our lives are dictated by others or inexperience. You eventually get your license and even a car, but you still have to pay attention to your surroundings when you drive. Every turn, every lane change, every parking situation requires attention to do properly. Once you get older, you drive for 20 years and suddenly realize you've driven on autopilot through downtown traffic because it’s just another day. What is normal to us now, was just a pipe-dream back then.

More than that, is the realization that despite the passage of time and the transition from childhood to adulthood, our lives are really about the same issues as when we were kids. We tend to think how different things are now that we’re grown up, but really isn’t still just all the same issues only viewed from a different perspective? We still struggle with love, money, toys, grooming. Where once we obsessed over when we’d finally get hair “down there” now we spend our time shaving it all off so we can look like we used to. We wanted a car and to drive and now it’s fighting over who has to be the designated drive. When you get right down to it, nothing has really changed.