When did we become grown-ups?

When exactly did we become grown-ups?

Was it a moment?

A choice?

A series of events?

Did it happen so slowly that by the time we realized we were grown-ups it was too late and we’d come too far to go back?

Because some days, I don’t feel very grown-up. Most of the time, it still comes as a shock and a surprise to realize that I’ve been out of high school for more than 10 years.

Some days I still expect to see my 18-year-old self when I look in the mirror. It just doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in high school.

But due to some things that have happened in the lives of people with whom I went to high school during this last week, I’ve been thinking about that group of us a lot. I’ve thought about my group of sweet, innocent girl friends who ate lunch together every day and loved to make each other laugh. I think about the athletes, the popular kids, the not-so-accepted people. The guys who would have rather been in the fields working than sitting at a desk. The artistic ones. The quiet ones.

I think about us, standing there on the cusp of adulthood thinking we knew everything and had the world by the tail. And I think about how many of us have learned that’s not quite the truth.

I think about the people we’ve become.

And among that group are mothers, fathers, friends, and professionals. Farmers. Hard workers. People who’ve stayed near our hometown and some who’ve moved away. College grads and pastors, musicians, and people who are still trying to figure out what to do.

We’re all trying to figure out what our lives are supposed to be like, I guess.

Among those high school friends and foes there are also sisters who have had to walk through the pain of losing a brother. Mothers who have lost their children. And sadly, even a few who have lost their lives.

Grown-up things keep happening to us. . . so we must be grown-ups.

Being grown-up isn’t all we thought it would be.