I remember when I was 18, I thought that the 16-year-old me was a dumb little boy. When I became 20, I felt the same way about my 18-year-old self. When I turned 22, same feeling about my 20-year-old self. And so it went until I became 26 when I finally started to feel like, yah, I’m an adult now, and I make good adult decisions. It just felt like it.
Well, this sudden realization of adulthood comes to all of us, whether in the form of a simple “huh, so that’s what it feels like” or in an epic divine intervention whereby God’s angelic servant descends from the clouds and gives you a slip of paper that says “Welcome to adulting, enjoy it”. Or anything in between.
And folks online have been sharing the former, the latter and the in between on Reddit lately. In particular, this all happened in a now-viral AskReddit thread that asked the question when is the first time you remember feeling like an adult?
Bored Panda gathered the best responses and stories and compiled an epic list for you to enjoy, upvote, and comment on below.
More Info: Reddit
#21
Truly felt like an adult? When I brought my son home from the hospital. I was 26. Everything up until the felt like small potatoes adulthood.
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68points
#22
When I saw people younger than me waste time on dead relationships, partying and dead end jobs. I realised I was now able to see the bigger picture and quite literally felt so old and responsible.
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65points
#23
When I was shopping and a man said to their kid, "watch the lady" so that they would budge.
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63points
#24
The day I paid my taxes online. I know I overpaid, but getting it out of the way and doing it by myslef felt good. I was an adult now I have full goddam credence to complain about the government.
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62points
#26
First time my electricity got turned off and I was like “oh s**t! Bills!”
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59points
#27
It's been fairly recently. I always felt like a kid, even for those few short years that I've been an adult.
I was at work, passing by a mirror. I glanced at it, and walked back to it, because I had dandruffs on my shoulders, and wanted to see if I brushed them off properly. As I finished brushing them off, I noticed that some of them got stuck in my beard. I took a closer look at my beard, and there it was- my face. And the realization hit me like a brick covered in lemon juice.
There are a lot of gray hairs in my beard now. My hair used to be always short, and now it grew all the way to my shoulders in what seems to be like a month. I have circles under my eyes. I am currently trying to go from a part-timer to a full-time employee. I am not the youngest employee in my work anymore. In fact, I helped to train a few part-timers myself. I help my mom pay bills. My sister had moved away a few years ago. I am not as interested in video games as I used to be. I lack energy most days. My body hurts a lot more than it used to. My nicotine and alcohol consumption is out of control (nicotine pouches, vape, snorting tobacco). Some friends from primary and secondary school became bald.
And I'm only 22. I was so afraid of becoming an adult... and here it is. I feel no different, and yet, I am scared and lost. Time is getting faster. A few years ago, a year seemed like an eternity. I'd wait for my birthday, Halloween, Christmas, and it'd take too long. Now it all seems to just fly right past me in the blink of an eye. Years are shorter, months are becoming weeks, days are starting to melt together into the same routine separated only by a brief sleep. I am losing connections to my old friends.
It's weird.
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55points
#29
A long time ago my child (about 1 at the time) could not sleep and he wanted to sit with me and a visiting friend and I said something like: " so you want to sit with the grown up people?" and it hit me. I was the grown up people. I was in my late 20s at the time.
The milestones of living on my own, marriage and such were long past then, but with my own child it really hit me. Adult. Responsible. Grown Up
48points
