i guess this is growing up

I've never really felt like an adult. I have a friend who comments each time we see each other on how we are really growing up, citing the fact that I am married, have a house, a career, pets -- every marking of the stereotypical American adult, minus the 2.5 kids and mini-van (or SUV??)

But I guess I have never really agreed. Honestly, I have always felt just the same as I always have, somewhere between those confinements of teen-dom and old age. I always wondered if I would ever feel that "adult-ness" feeling coming on or if it would just happen. If it didn't happen with finding the love of my life, being married, moving away from home or even finishing college and starting my career, what would it be? Having kids? Buying a house? Turning 30 or even 40?

I hadn't thought about it for a while, but I realized recently that feeling like a grown up isn't always a great thing. If being an adult means being knocked down by the failing economy just as so many others have, knowing that our parents won't be there to bail us out, I don't know if I want to join those ranks! We are seeing so many of our friends having their second or even third kids, and we are nowhere near that phase in our own lives. We keep seeing friends, as young as we are, who have already divorced. We have seen death and life and everything in between...and it's made me realize that feeling like a grown up may not be all that it's cracked up to be.

The feeling is bound to appear eventually and I can't help but wonder if it's a good thing. Will it be a relief to finally be that grown-up I always dreamed of becoming, even though it comes complete with the same fears and worries of the older generations who lived before us; or should I be clinging to that security blanket of youth, never letting go? I know we can't have it both ways, not really, but it's difficult to make the choice. 

Or maybe it isn't a choice at all. Maybe it just happens out of the blue, when we realize we have finally reached that stage of life. All I know is that I haven't reached that place yet.