Warning! For Adults Only (The Second Coming of Age)

Image not mine. I don't want to know where this image really came from. It might lead me to unwanted links.

(This entry is a sequel to an old writing I entitled Coming of Age.)

I am of legal age. Scratch that! I have been enjoying my legal rights for a while now. Law and Science consider me as an ADULT. But I asked myself today, Am I really an adult?, in the real sense of the word beyond its legal and scientific meaning?

Many times I have disillusioned myself that I know better than others. Being a very open and opinionated person that I am, I am usually very direct talking about my side of the story. In most cases, I find myself on the right side of the table. In some, I am in the wrong one. In some, I find myself still on the right side of the table but, for some reason, I am hanging by a thread. My opinion, no matter how right it sounds, doesn't feel like it goes down easy.

A month ago, I got into a situation where I made two people talk hoping they could fix things and put a closure on whatever misunderstanding they had and move on. One party did not show up. I got frustrated because I did not understand why one adult will not take that rare chance. I mean what is there to hide? I thought it was utterly wrong because I am used to expressing how I feel freely. If I have issues with my friends, I keep the lines open and send the message across in the most reasonable way which is to talk.

As a result, I wrote this status on Facebook.

And a different scenario akin to the first - 

Although there is, indeed, a lot of truth in it, it is also good to turn the table and see through people. It happened to me. I was brought to the other side without my consent, of course! The side where handling conflicts in my adult version way doesn't feel right at all. I did not come to terms with the issues and I failed my own standard of adulthood and got a dose of my own medicine.Although I generally still want to handle conflicts head-on, my mindset changed. I came to age.

Another one -

 
I got fed up hearing complaints about feeling out of place. I found it difficult to understand because I thought the solution was easy - involve yourself. Until I got my own cold treatment. It was painful to involve yourself and make your voice and presence counted only to be ignored and wiped out of the scenario. There must be a valid reason why people would shut their door on you and I respect that. But one thing is for sure, it was extremely painful especially if it is coming from the person you least expect it would. Imagine traveling with someone, getting into an argument, then going to the rest room only to find out he left you on your own when you came back. That's the feeling! It can be excruciating!
 
I can enumerate many more instances that humbled me in a million ways. Sides where I found myself surprisingly accepting of the reasons behind it.

I wonder, do we really reach adulthood in the real sense of the word beyond its legal and scientific meaning? Can someone really say, I am an adult? Can we really say we become better adults if we can't even say we are already adults?

There is more to adulthood than age, license, privilege to vote, emancipation or legal rights. Adulthood goes deeper than any of those. It is something that you aim for without an end. We age but we don't really become adults or better adults. We learn with age. It's like a pursuit. Maybe we are not meant to attain adulthood. Maybe we are destined to just pursue it until our last breath.

We just become older and wiser but can never really call ourselves an adult. Because only an adult can talk about being an adult. And will all these realizations, no one measures up.