How soon is now?

It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew. --Henry Rollins

I think it's safe to say that I qualify as an adult. I've got my own place, bills, responsibilities. I'm well past the age when mommy and daddy (or anyone else, for that matter) get to have a say in what I do. But allow me to let you in on a little secret, boys and girls: there is no magic moment when you become a "grown-up." You know--that supposed point in time when a metaphorical light goes on over your head and you've suddenly got everything figured out: who you are, where you're going, what the point of everything is. You don't suddenly become mature, happy, stable, sensible. That teenage angst driving you crazy? It never really does go away. Hell, for most people, high school never really goes away.

In my experience, it seems everyone starts figuring this out (or at least acting on it) around the same age. And there are two initial responses to this newfound and unwanted knowledge: depression or panic.

Those who get depressed will carry on with their lives doing whatever they were doing before, making the same plans, moving forward. Only they're not quite themselves anymore. They've got a shadow hanging over them, weighing them down, reminding them that This Is It. Things don't suddenly start making sense, the way is not suddenly illuminated. Their obnoxious co-workers are not suddenly going to grow the fuck up, and their spoiled 30-something siblings are not going to see the error of their ways. They won't get the key to happiness and fulfillment handed to them along with their university/college degree and parking pass. The shadow reminds them that happiness comes at a price, and that price is the damn hard work of finding out who they are and creating, if they can, the life that's right for them.

The ones who panic are like victims succumbing to some kind of monkey virus. One day they are whoever they were; the next they're just a statistic. They're sure the answers are out there, and the only way to find them is to stay on the prescribed path, the one (they believe) everyone else is on. They latch on to a group, a belief, a theory, and cling to it with a death grip. Those are the friends who suddenly start talking like they got their hands on a script: it's all cliches and catchphrases, the topics all safe and common. They start acting the same scripted way. They buy a house when everyone else is doing it, they have kids after they've been to a couple of friends' baby showers. It doesn't matter what they do with their lives as long as they're doing it exactly the same way everyone else is. The only good thing about losing these friends (and you will, unless you let yourself get infected too) is that you won't be around to watch the inevitable mid-life crises.