A friend of mine who turns 23 this month is worrying about it. It sounds like such a grownup age, which is putting a lot of pressure on him.

“I have so many questions,” he said to me. “Do I have to start tucking in my shirt?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. In elementary school, I decided to get married at 25 because then I’d be an adult and it seemed like the age one does that sort of thing. But 23 isn’t that far off from 25. Tucking in his shirt may be the least he can do. The question I keep coming back to is one that’s proving extremely difficult to answer. When do you start being a grownup?

As kids, we spent a lot of time looking at the taller people around us, thinking they really had a handle on things. I’ve heard with age comes wisdom, which is why in first grade I thought sixth graders had that whole life thing down to a science. But now I’ve been through sixth grade, I’m going into 16th grade, and I still feel like the first grader who sadly watched as Kenton Harshbarger wiped his boogers on her chicken nuggets. I don’t have life down to a science. It’s a miracle I even remember to brush my hair in the morning.

Legally, I became an adult at 18. When I remember what I was doing at 18, though, I realize I was only adult in the sense that my parents were no longer obligated to care about me and I became eligible for jail and the lottery. I spent a surprising amount of time dancing around to “I’m Too Sexy” in my underwear, for God’s sakes. It certainly didn’t happen on my 21st birthday, which was again spent dancing to “I’m Too Sexy” (although happily I was wearing pants). Nonetheless, I have somehow inexplicably found society starting to expect new things of me.

As it turns out, no one throws you a party on a certain date with a banner that says, “Congrats! Now You’re A Real Person!” Nobody even gives you a lame Hallmark card. All of the sudden the kids you’re hanging out with are paying their bills, and cooking meals, and in some cases producing kids of their own. They don’t know what they’re doing. There’s no aptitude test or shady initiation ceremony they went through to do those things. They know exactly the same stuff you do, and since those are all grownup activities, you too must be a grownup. That means that you and all those other inexperienced people are now the ones all the younger people are watching thinking, “Yep. They know what they’re doing.”

They’re so wrong. I’ve been asking around, thinking maybe everyone else took a Home Ec class I missed (which happened in middle school– I still can’t use a sewing machine). It turns out we’re all sort of meandering around being phony, pretending that we’re totally qualified to have PIN numbers and migraines and the ability to make dentist appointments. No one announced to the world, “Now I will be responsible!” It just happened. We’re adults with adult responsibilities.

It’s official: my nearly 23-year-old friend and I have joined the ranks of grownups, completely by accident. He doesn’t have to tuck in his shirt if he doesn’t want to because he’s an adult, and although he may not know it, he’s probably been doing grownup things for a while now. Elementary school-aged Stephanie would advise him to get married.

Present day Stephanie only has this to say: Fake it until you make it. It’s what the rest of the world’s been doing this whole time.

ssummar@mesastate.edu