How You Know You’re a Grown-Up:
- When you hate the snow and all that it means for your job, your house and your food supply.
- When you have to choose a pencil skirt over a romper.
- When you have to cook at home because 1) you are sticking to a budget and 2) because you are too tired to face anything but pajamas and a couch by the time you get out of work.
- When you look forward to vacations maybe once or twice a year instead of as a 3-month stretch of summer.
- When you finally, really understand what Mom & Dad meant when they said, “We’ll have to wait until payday.”
- When you are shocked by what preteens are wearing to go the mall.
- When you classify “failures” as personal short-comings instead of using it as a name-calling device (“you’re such a failure!) or as a grading mechanism (“this paper was a dismal failure.”) But, this only truly qualifies if you then examine those failures as areas for growth instead of as angsty pools of self-loathing.
- When you realize that your mere existence does not qualify you to earn respect or recognition.
- When you accept that jealousy is pointless and self-destructive.
- When you learn that channeling such jealousy into inspiration is pretty darn effective.
- When you see that, all along, your sibling has been your best friend and you really don’t need anyone else except for him/her.
- When you publicly take ownership of your decisions, good and bad, without excuses and without lies and cover-ups.
- When buying presents at Christmas becomes a lot more fun than receiving them.
- When you start to question celebrating Christmas at all! (i.e. Let’s go skiing instead!)
- When you notice that the more that people say they can’t stand “popularity contests,” the more they are secretly trying to win them.
This post inspired me… here are some other great signs of maturity from Laugh It Out:
1. Your house plants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song on an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and break up.
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
10. You’re the one calling the police because those damn kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonalds leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 PM.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good stuff.”
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to,” replaces, “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You no longer drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
And a few of my own:
- When you realize that happiness is self-determined and not dependent on other people.
- When you recognizing that other people are just as important/intelligent/insert-other-positive-attribute-here as you are… including your parents.
