Almost Adulting

Almost Adulting

As a college student, legally speaking, I am an adult. But in practice, that doesn’t seem quite right. I am not a kid anymore But I don’t feel like a real adult either. I am almost adulting.

I do my own grocery shopping And I buy fruits and vegetables To make healthy meals. But I also buy Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I am definitely way more excited about the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I am almost adulting.

I know how to cook. I am actually really good at it. But that doesn’t stop me from sometimes putting Dino Nuggets in my airfryer And calling that dinner. Don’t forget the ketchup. I am almost adulting.

I bought my own plates for my townhouse But they were one dollar each at Target, They are rainbow colors, And they have divided sections With animal characters on the bottom. I am almost adulting.

My room decor includes a mushroom shaped lamp, Some posters of dancing frogs, Color-changing Christmas lights, And a windowsill full of ceramic dinosaurs from the dollar store. Somehow that counts as a valid sense of interior design. I’m almost adulting.

Legally, I am allowed to drink. But when I go to a store And see a middle-aged woman Buying wine that costs more than eight dollars And talking to her friend about tasting notes and cheese pairings I feel like I am not supposed to be there. I am almost adulting.

I own a 120-pack of Crayola Crayons. I say “Hi buddy” out loud whenever I pass a dog. The only video game I like is Mario Kart. Sometimes I quote the jokes from Buzzfeed videos that no one has watched since 2012. I still think pasta with butter is a spectacular meal. And I do not understand how the stock market works. How am I an adult?

But I have had several jobs. At one of them I was a supervisor. I presented at an academic conference. This school is about to give me a bachelor’s degree. And I just started applying to grad school. Shouldn’t that count as adulting?

So after careful consideration I have developed a theory That real adults don’t actually exist And we’re all just almost adulting.

Madeline is a senior at Fairfield University. She is a triple major in Politics, American Studies, and Political Anthropology (which is an individually designed major). She has minors in Anthropology, Religion in America, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Madeline is a Student Fellow with the Humanities Institute doing research on American civil religion and the evangelical right. She is the Co-Editor in Chief and Managing Editor of the Apollon undergraduate e-journal and the Opinion section editor of Fairfield University’s student newspaper, The Fairfield Mirror.

She is trying her best to be an adult, and now you get to laugh about it with her.