A few days ago, I had this weird realization hit me. I’m 34; I turn 35 in 8 months. (I know a lot of people just rolled their eyes at this… hang with me here.)

My 30s are going to be half over! Or maybe I should look at it that I have half my 30s left.

Either way, I’m not a kid any more. Not even close. But I also find myself wondering when I’m going to have that moment of, “I’m an adult now.”

I mean, I’m married. I’ve bought a house. I’m starting a business. I’ve done a whole bunch of totally grown-up things. I think I think like an adult. I hang out with adults…

Growing up, I was always the oldest person in my group of friends. After getting married and moving to Nashville, I am now generally the YOUNGEST person in a group. So you’d think I’d feel like an adult more than ever.

But there are plenty of things I still think I’m 18 about. Like I think I can eat anything and not gain a pound. Or if I do gain weight I can drop in two days still. I think I can still just break out in a dead run and do a 400 meter dash and only be kinda winded. I think I can fall asleep in the car and not have a neck ache afterwards.   I figure I still have YEARS before things like a yearly mammogram will apply to me. I don’t have an 8-5 job that I wear dress pants and button down shirts to every day. And I don’t have everything figured out, like I used to think adults did when I was a kid.

I guess I do, though, realize my age when I don’t think about it too hard.

When bartending, I regularly looked out at college-age and clearly-fresh-out-of-college 20-somethings with a weary eye knowing that I no longer had the amount of patience I had back then for their thought processes. I gain a lot of entertainment reading teens tweets and the fact that their life is bound to end because someone broke up with them. (I also spend more time than I’ll admit Googling what they say so I can understand.)

I find myself very thankful social media didn’t exist when I was 16.

I went out with my friends on Saturday night, and we ended up having long conversations about health. People we know with cancer was one long part of the conversation, and afterwards I commented how we used to talk about guys that in depth.

We spoke of loss. We talked jobs, traffic and keeping our homes. we talked about how much things cost. We talked babies, and dreams.

It’s natural. It’s where we are in life…

Perhaps I am over analytically thinking. In fact I know I am. And perhaps this is some weird midlife crisis in which I go through this weird denial that time is passing faster than I like to admit.

I love that I’ve been married over 8 years, though it doesn’t FEEL that long until I look back at all we’ve already been through together. Sometimes I think I should have myself together a lot more by now. Other times I know there are many, many years still to come and we’re always growing and learning.

It’s just going to keep getting better.

None of us ever have it all figured out. That’s just part of life. Just like getting older. We learn to adjust and figure it out as we go… and I suppose its with that realization that I know I AM an adult.