I know people who talk about their high school and college days fondly. They talk about those crazy parties and those wild times and being hungover in class and dating as if those were the good times and being an adult is all responsibility and monotony.

I’m not one of those people.

Listen, I didn’t hate college. I did a lot of growing and learning…however I wasn’t outgoing enough to have the college experience we see in movies. I studied and wrote papers and talked to people in class sometimes…and that was it. Once I switched my major from music to English I got great grades. I felt like college was a pitstop on the way to something better.

But this is my problem. I have always felt like what I was doing at any given time was a precursor to something else. I can’t honestly say that I ever took the time to be thankful for where I was in my life at any given time. There was always something better to look forward to.

When I finished school, it was Korea – the bigger and better thing. I moved there, I loved it, but I knew it was temporary.

Korea was a weird thing. It was the first time in my life that I let myself appreciate what I was doing…but it felt…shallow? I don’t know if that’s the right word for it. I guess it was almost fake. It wasn’t my real life. It was like… the Korean currency was like monopoly money. My bills were magically taken from my account every month and I didn’t care. I drank and smoked cigarettes – gross habit that I don’t have anymore – and I dated. I had a serious relationship – the first I had ever had.

Korea was different from other stages of my life though. I wasn’t watching the calendar and counting the days until something better happened. I was trying to have as much fun as possible before I had to go back to the States and be an adult…which to me seemed like the absolute worst thing ever.

In my mind, adults were people who had it all together. They were people with marriages and mortgages and organized plans for everything. They had steady – albeit mind-numbing – occupations and talked about the weather and budgets and whatever was going on in the Middle East.

I can’t go back and be an adult, I thought to myself on many an occasion. I don’t have it all together yet. I’m emotional and anxious and insecure. I still like wearing headbands with cute bows. I like my Hello Kitty wearing sunglasses t-shirt. I’m not married. I’m so disorganized. And I never know what’s going on with the war on terror so however will I converse with anyone. If I happen to find myself in a waiting room of some sort and my reading material choices are limited to newspapers…you had better believe I’m going to read the arts and leisure section. Politics? I don’t think so. What a drag.

But as circumstances would have it, I found myself back in America trying to find a full-time job and feeling too much like a child. Where would I fit in? I had had a full-time job in Korea, sure, but that was Korea where I was away from reality. I hadn’t given the work I was doing much thought. I showed up, taught English, then got drunk 4-5 days a week with friends or coworkers.

So…I get this job I have now…by the grace of God…and the first few weeks were surreal. I wore my professional clothes and talked with adults and had meetings and taught classes to people two and three times my age. I did this all while thinking I was a child compared to everyone. How would they take me seriously…?

Then…the turning point. I was in a meeting with my team – the three of us trainers – and my supervisor asked what concerns we had since we were both new to the training world. I brought up that, “When I’m teaching adults, I feel like I can’t be the authority.”

My supervisor said, “You say ‘adults’ like you’re not one.”

And then my coworker, who is a good 6-7 years older than me, said, “Oh yeah, I feel the same way. You just have to fake it until you believe it.”

Wait a minute. My coworker was an adult…and she still felt this way…? That made absolutely no sense to me. She was supposed to have it all together, right?

Then, through this time I have been teaching, I have talked with my students candidly about their lives. One conversation I had with a woman who is a mother and grandmother has stayed with me.

“Sweetheart,” she told me. “I wish I had it together as much as I did when I was in my twenties. I had all my stuff together. I don’t know how I kept so organized with my kids and working and going to school. I had it all together. I can’t do that anymore.”

So… do any of us feel like we have it all together?

These first few months at this job have been some of the most meaningful and rewarding in my life. For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something better. I want to do the absolute best that I can to teach my students. I have met so many people traveling to different locations in this city and it has made me much more outgoing. I am happy. I’m not wondering what I can do after this because I’m too busy having fun.

This, I have decided, is what being an adult is for me. I’m still as emotional and eccentric as I was when I was a teenager. My laundry still sits in a basket until I decide to put it away…maybe two or three weeks after. I don’t feel like I have everything together …and if you bring up politics I’m probably going to awkwardly excuse myself from the conversation. I don’t quite know what’s going on in the Middle East, but I did watch Argo so that counts for something, right?

Being an adult is much more fun than I had anticipated. All it took was being happy with where I am at this time.