All Grown Up

When do we go from adjectives to nouns, from growing up – to simply -grown ups? (Yes those are both me. Yes my wave was much sweeter then.)

Does the switch happen when you get your driver’s license? The first kiss, first shave, the first time you go to a Halloween party instead of trick or treating? At the bar mitzvah, or the non-Jewish equivalent?  First beer, first cubicle, the first time you can rent a car without the added $30 a day fee? The first time you don’t laugh when your Aunt Martha and Uncle Ed talk about their recent trip to Lake Titicaca? I’m not sure.

At twenty-five years old, I know there is an invisible tipping point. Somewhere. Looming. Right under the surface.  My hairs tingling on my arms say it’s stalking me. Watching. Waiting to grab my leg at the first drop of maturity.

Then I will no longer be growing up. Instead I will simply be. No longer able to chalk up mistakes and failures as simply part of childhood adolescence, a part of the learning, growing process. Because at some point the process is over and the grace to mess up is packed away with the baseball cards, G.I. Joes or Barbie dolls.

Then you’re a finished product. Regal and refined, sporting a few gray hairs and the wisdom to go with it. You stand up straighter, comb hair neater, and talk clearer – enunciating with much more enthusiasm and regularity.

No longer Billy, but Bill. No more Tommy, just Tom. Katie is long-gone, now it’s just Kate. Then before you know it, Kate or Tom isn’t even official enough.

No, now, “It’s Ms.”

Or “I’d prefer if you’d call me Mr,” lumping yourself with the grown up ranks.

“Here I stand and Grown Up is my name!”

At twenty-five, married, with quite obvious patches of gray hair, is it wrong I still feel like I’m growing, not grown? What do you guys think?

Are you an adjective or a noun?