It seems as though everyone and their mother (and grandmother and grandfather and second and third cousins) is writing articles on what it means to be a twenty-something. As though the decade where you hit many major life rites of passage can be described in a twenty-something list of .gifs, vines and memes. I have chuckled at and shared many of these articles. I watch old episodes of Friends and think “I’m just like these people,” searching for the funniest BuzzFeed I can find comparing myself to Chandler (As of course I am a Chandler). I am practically screaming at the top of my internet lungs that I was born in the 1990s and remember all of these pre-internet things. 
While this is all superficial and fun games I can’t help but wonder has the internet age of sharing created the more malicious implication of these posts—the urge to be an “adult?”
Every single time (EVERY. SINGLE. TIME) I get together for drinks/workouts/dinner with a friend the topic of marriage and babies comes up. The dialogue usually involves something along the lines of “Did you see so-and-so procreate/got married?” It then quickly turns into either a “they are the last people on earth who should be trusted with another human life,” or a “what-the-actual-explicative is wrong with me?” It’s as though the constant updates from people who in the past I wouldn’t have given a second thought after graduation has created a form of self-doubt that psychologists will study in the future and mark as the moment humanity collectively lost its mind. I spend an inordinate amount of time reminding myself that I shouldn’t be jealous that Kathy bought a house, I don’t even know where I want to live yet! (Related: I’m 24 years old—I shouldn’t be buying a house!)
When did everyone come to the decision that they wanted to grow up so fast? I relate to the characters on Friends and they’re in their late 20s when the show BEGINS. This means that they are a decade ahead of me in years but I have this unrealistic expectation that I too should be knee-deep in my career and family life. I shouldn’t. I am not. I am not and I shouldn’t be. I am exactly where I should be in life. I graduated college and went on to a Master’s program right away. 
I acted as a Teaching Assistant and had the weirdest experience of having to be an authority figure to people who were just like I was 3 months prior. I thought back to my experience with Teaching Assistants my freshman year of college at the University of Nebraska before I transferred to a university where all my professors had their doctorate in what they taught (Thanks for being worth my money, Mary Washington!). The TAs always were either ridiculously hard or so laid back and awesome. Which one they were differed based upon whether they saw themselves as an “adult” or not.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but it was either acceptance of the weirdness of their situation or overcompensation. The hard TAs were basically saying, “I feel insecure in my position of authority over you so I’m going to ruin your life,” or I imagine that was what it was anyway. I spent so much time trying to be “professional” that I think I was actually unavailable to the students—which is the exact opposite of what an educator should do. Then I became a tutor for the athletic department and in my first semester was so formal in my correspondence that I ended up having a lot of students stand me up (which isn’t as bad as it sounds because I still got paid!). The second semester I realized that if I texted them instead of emailed them they might actually show up, listen to me and learn, because guess what—just like me they were twenty-something’s who are attached to their phone like it’s a good luck charm. Once I stopped trying to be an “adult,” I actually was able to do my job.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t make mistakes along the way, because I did. There’s a great story about one of the students I tutored giving me his post-game Gatorade because I ran into him after I had personally drank a gallon of alcohol. All this means is that I shouldn’t have tried so hard to fit into this definition of what it means to be an “adult.” I don’t know what an adult is, honestly. But if it means having a home-loan and babies and husbands at the young age of 24 then I never want to grow up. I barely know who I am. I eat candy for breakfast sometimes. I stay up until 3 A.M. for no reason. These are not things that adults do but they are things that I am supposed to be doing. 
I work a crappy job for crappy pay and have not yet reached my goal of becoming a Men’s College Basketball coach and that is entirely okay. If being married and having kids is what you want to be doing at 24, then do it. If it’s not, just remember Chandler and Monica were in their 30s before they got married and half of marriages end in divorce.
Sara is a currently working a crappy job for crappy pay in Virginia. Some of my fondest memories are hanging out with her during our college years. When she does decide to become an adult the world better watch out cause she is going to take it by storm.
Erica Is A Professional 