Defining Adulthood...

“Just the woman I was looking for...”

That’s what a coworker said to me as I was walking down the hall the other day. What startled me was that he, the same age as me, called me a “woman”. Yeah, I know that I’m female, but I’m also guilty of usually referring to myself and my friends as “girls”.

I guess it’s time for me to own my grown.

I have a full time job, my own apartment, pay my own bills. (Cue Webbie...) I even have a couple credit cards and am indentured to Sallie Mae. But I don’t often think of myself as being a grown ass woman.

I’m not married, I don’t have kids. To me, those were always the key things that I associated with adulthood. So you can get married before you can buy alcohol, or you can have a kid before you graduate high school. Those things were always a big deal because you weren’t considered fully grown.

In all honesty, my life right now feels an awful lot like being a teenager with disposable income. I don’t really have any major responsibilities outside of showing up for work (relatively close to) on time and paying the rent by the first of each month. So now, at 28, how do I define adulthood?