i guess part of being an adult is being the person you're going to be for the rest of your life, more or less. it seems clear that at this point, that's true of me, and of course that's true of most if not all of my friends. this was sort of brought home by hanging out with eva's sister rebekah, who was 14 when i met her and is 18 now. and in the meantime, i feel like her personality has just exploded (in an awesome way, i feel compelled to add.)
but to me, the interesting thing was that she doesn't see it that way; she thinks that sure, maybe she's a bit more outgoing, but she is essentially the same person at 18 that she was at 14. and i started thinking, and you know what? when i was 18, i certainly thought that i was essentially the same person that i was at 14, in terms of the stuff that matters, worldview and personality and whatnot, except more outgoing and in an environment where i could thrive.
i mean, i feel like for me the discontinuity came at age almost-13, at hampshire that summer; that was when i formed actual opinions about things that matter, and when i started to understand social relationships and human emotions and things like that. but that obviously isn't the kid-adult divide, which i think for the vast majority of people happens in college (as in, only exceptional pre-collegians are adults, and almost nobody leaves college stll a kid.) it's certainly preposterous to claim that when i was almost-13 i became an adult, and i certainly would say looking back on things that i was certainly still very much a kid then, definitely not the full-fledged analytical, literally considerate conversationalist that i am today, not even close.
but the weird part is that even though it's very clear to me that everyone falls into one of these categories, i can't pinpoint anything close to an abrupt transition like this in my life, where i was a kid one day (or even one month, or one year) and an adult the next. it must have happened, and it even must have happened to my friends too (presumably around the same time), but i can't see the abrupt transition in my life or any life parallel to mine. which is weird; i can't recall the last time i met someone who i would consider on the fence between being a kid and an adult, someone who was undergoing the transition.
hopefully that doesn't mean i'm still a kid.