The last year has been an interesting experience of suddenly realising that I am an adult.
We’ve all grown up, yes, but there was no one single moment where we suddenly “become an adult” and get a welcome packet complete with all the information on what to do and how to do it properly and an email or phone number to contact if you have any questions.
It just kind of, happens.
Slowly the minutes pass, and the hours—the days and the years. Until one day you realise all the things you once dreamt about doing or being when you get older have become a distant memory in the brain of the person who has, indeed, gotten older. Life has come and gone. People have come and gone. And, if you’re lucky, you only just start to face the mortality of not just the people around you, but your very own parents.
That has been my experience over the last year. Facing the mortality of my parents. This is just another part of adulting that no one really prepares you for. As a child when you freedom dream and revel in the idea of making your own choices and not having to ask for permission or report to anyone, the idea of what that responsibility actually entails gets completely lost. You never think about your parents much in those scenarios, except as barricades to your fantasy of independence. But never as adults who will age, and whose role in your life will inevitably change until it disappears completely. The fact that you are growing older means that others around you—like your parents—are doing the same, and it will, inevitably, change the way they show up in your life and the way you show up in theirs.
This concept of “old” people as this far-away thing that is unfathomable and imperceptible to your young mind, becomes a gap that closes in more and more each time you blow out the candles on your birthday cake. Then one day, people who were once your elders are now your peers, and your parents suddenly can’t be seen as permanent fixtures in your life anymore.
Maybe that is the moment. The day it hits you, however and for whatever reason, that your parents are aging and their health declining with each passing breath. The day you get your imaginary information packet, which tells you that presence is all we truly have and we should fill every moment of it with our awareness and intentionality.
Maybe that is the day you truly become an adult.
That is the day you learn about the responsibility of your choices; face the culmination of all of the choices you have made so far, and those you will make in the future. That is the day you get to decide how and who you want to be in this world; how you will show up in the relationships that matter to you.
For the rest of your days—and for theirs.
