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Yesterday at work I was caring for this 14 year old girl when my hospital pager rang, letting me know that a patient in another room needed my help. Since I had a free hand, I pulled the pager out of my pocket to acknowledge the call so that I would have to feel that buzzing in my pocket for the next 10 minutes while I was with her. I still had the phone in my hand when my patient asked "how do you do that?" "Do what?" I asked. "How do you use that phone? I want to know how to be an adult".
Woah there. She is asking me how to be an adult?! Does that mean I am an adult?! Its almost 11am and I am sitting here in my PJs with my hair a mess, my bed unmade and dishes in my sink. The other day when I went grocery shopping, I tried to only spend $20 because theres only a few bucks in my bank account right now. My mom had to come down to New Brunswick yesterday to take me to the doctor because I felt really awful, and when she said "You don't need me to come in with you, do you?" I had to refrain from saying "Yes, yes I do need you to come".
But then again I can see how to this girl I do seem like an adult. I wear scrubs which makes me look very similar to all of the nurses that care for her, who are actually adults. I suppose I am in a position of authority over her - telling her whether or not she can go to rec based on the other things we need to do to care for her.
Its just really interesting to think about the different kind of characters we become based on our setting and based on the other people around. If I am with my mom and my brother, then I suppose I am a bit of an adult and my mom treats me like an equal. But if it is just me and my mom, then I seem like more of a child. And obviously when I am just with my friends, we are all equals - 21 year old equals doing 21 year old things such as "meeting for drinks" which tends to make us feel very grown up.
I don't know. I guess the whole point of this rant is just me trying to figure out exactly where I am in life. We are just sort of in this very interesting middle ground, but I am pretty happy here. I am in no rush to understand exactly what being an adult means.
