On Nutella And Being An Adult

November 13, 2013

I was rereading my first-ever blog post from yesterday, and I had a thought. When in the world did I become such an angst-ridden teenager? Then I had a second, and even more perturbing thought. I'm not actually a teenager anymore. Crap. There goes that excuse. 

For your enlightenment, dear audience, you should know that I had my twentieth birthday a couple weeks ago, and I am now inhabiting that nebulous space between teenage life and adulthood. Because let's be honest. Even though I'm legally an adult, no one's going to treat me like one until I can legally walk up to a counter and declare, "Bartender, your finest scotch please!" Not that I have any inclination to go out and get smashed. And not that I couldn't find some alcohol anyways, if I really wanted to. No, it's the principle of the matter. And the matter is, no one is going to think of me as an adult until I can buy the gang a round of drinks. Or a pack of disgustingly cheap beer. Depends on your gang, I suppose. And yet, I have forever lost the ability to hide behind the convenient (though still not legitimate) excuse of being a teenager. Oh dear. 

In my mind, there are three levels of adulthood. Apparently, in our society, it's too stressful to spring it on you all at once. So it's broken down into three easy steps.

Step #1: You've just turned 18! You are now legally allowed to shrivel up your lungs with excessive amounts of smoke and nicotine, gamble away all your money in an Indian casino, and get your butt landed in a state penitentiary when you decide to act like a stupid idiot. On the plus side, you are also allowed to sign your life away whenever you please without the consent of a parent and/or guardian. Tell me more!

Step #2: You've just turned 21! Feel free to go get yourself rip-roaring drunk and to illegally supply all your younger siblings and acquaintances with alcoholic beverages. You also have now received the honor of getting your brand-new driver's license. (At one point, I knew what the difference was between the a teenage license and an adult one. Now, I really couldn't tell you.)

Step #3: You've just turned 25! (Or 24, or 26. I think it varies depending on your provider...) You have now earned the privilege of going out and obtaining your own health/dental/car insurance. No more leaching off your parents' plan. And at this point in your life, you've managed to become a fully-fledged adult. Good luck, sucker. 

Okay, rereading this last part, it occurred to me that you, oh audience of mine, might be getting the wrong impression here. I would like to state here and now that I am in no way against becoming an adult. In fact, during high school I was one of the teenagers that was ready to skip the whole immature, adolescent stage and skip right to the adult stage. Being immature just takes so much energy. And as for the teenager excuse, I have as much respect for that line of thinking as the whole "boys will be boys" shtick. Which, in short, is no respect at all. 

So, in most respects, I was one of those rare teenagers that was actually looking forward to the whole adult thing. You know, buying groceries, paying bills, setting your own hours, getting a job, decorating your own place. And yes, I think that this is probably atypical. I've made my peace with that. But still, even though I never felt particularly inclined to cower behind the whole teenager excuse to distance myself from taking responsibility for my actions, there is still something slightly sad about realizing that I am now an adult. That from now on I shall always be an adult. Never again a teenager. 

I occasionally have these little epiphanies. During my last big one, during my junior year of high school, I coined the term "Peter Pan Syndrome." For any medical/psychological buffs out there in my dear audience, I would like to make a disclaimer right now that I am 95% certain that this is not actually a thing. And I am not going to ever claim that it is. But it made me feel slightly better, and that little linguistic demon in my soul was tickled pink by the cleverness of it all. Peter Pan Syndrome. For those of you who don't watch Disney as much as I do (which is a shame and should be rectified immediately), Peter Pan is a Disney character who is perpetually a little boy who never wants to grow up. When I am overcome with Peter Pan Syndrome (PPS), I have this irrational need to go back to when I was younger, with less responsibilities and worries in my life, when everything seemed simpler. 

I was originally hit with this when I had to start applying for colleges. Every time the guidance counselor came into the room and started telling us all about all the tests that we needed to take and applications that we needed to fill out and qualifications we needed to meet, I wanted to slip out the door and run until I couldn't run anymore. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that particular feeling. It might be due to the fact that I ran long distance all through high school, and I often spent a lot of time talking about all the problems in my life while on runs with the team. When faced with a particular stressful situation, I still feel the irrational need to sprint it out of my system. 

The stupidest part of the whole thing was the fact that I really didn't have anything to worry about. I was a 4.0 student who was on the varsity cross country and track teams, with decent extra-curriculars and volunteer hours. To top it all off, standardized tests and I have always been simpatico, so I really had nothing to stress about. And yet. And yet.

This is when I first realized a serious onset of PPS. I wanted to be back in middle school. No, even better, elementary school. When all you had to worry about was which team to be on at recess and finishing your one page homework for math class. And even though I rationally knew that life and college were going to continue to move forward with or without my cooperation, I still continued to pretend to not see it. Then proceeded to stress about the fact that I was pretending not to see it. Because I am one of those horrible perfectionists that can't relax if I know that something that is supposed to be completed is not being worked on, even if I am the one who chose not to work on it. The curse of the procrastinating perfectionist. 

I continued on that particular track until I had driven myself into a cynical, stressed, nervous wreck. And yes, the cynical part is important. Not only because it seems to be one of my prominent personality traits, but also because it seemed to indicate the doomed nature of the whole endeavor. Because no matter how I struggled against it, part of me was quite aware that I was still going to end up caving in and taking those tests. Filling out those applications. Meeting those qualifications. Because even though some romantic, philosophic, and yes, cowardly part of my soul didn't want to move beyond the expectations and experiences of my elementary school self, and was sad at the idea that I would never be able to touch that existence in that way ever again, my practical and rational self was both expectant and excited when considering being an adult. 

And I suppose that's what I again thought of when I was rereading my previous post and realizing that I could never again be a teenager. It's not even that I was particularly enamored of being a teenager. Because I wasn't. Not at all. The whole "during high school was the best years of my life" idea was something that I never ascribed to, even while in high school. There are bigger and better things than being a teenager. But looking at myself now, and realizing that I can never go back, that I am going to be pushed forward through life whether I agree with it or not, well, it was a paradigm shift for me. It was one of those moments when I felt what I already knew. It became so much more real for me. This is it, I thought. I can't ever go back. At that moment in time, it became an entirely tangible possibility for me that I was going to grow older and eventually die. And well, we all know how cheery that particular thought is. 

Okay, that's enough of that. If  I continue to contemplate my eventual death, I might convince myself that I really don't need to finish that lab report that I need to work on, because, you know, I'll die in the end anyways, so what's the point? Which is not productive at all. So instead, I'll give you one more little tidbit to chew on, because I bet at least one of you in my dear audience is burning to ask the question, What the heck is with the Nutella?

Truthfully, the Nutella has nothing to do with the rest of this. I was just eating some this afternoon and realized that Nutella might possibly be the nectar of the gods. But only possibly. Because as much as I hate to sound like some kind of PMSing chick, chocolate also has this kind of irresistible magnetism that I can never overcome, no matter how many times I tell myself to just eat an apple instead. Then I proceed to slice the apple and dip it in the chocolate and delude myself into thinking that I'm eating a healthy snack. However, at this moment in time, I think that Nutella has eked out a slim lead in my heart as far as comfort foods go, and I just felt the need to share it with all of you.