GROWN UPS

A while back I posted on my Facebook about how I was having a moment of silence for my youth because I heard TLC on the oldies station.  I may or may not have wept a little bit when I was typing that sentence.  Also?  The other day I was talking to this teenager who didn't know who NSYNC was.  And I explained to her that NSYNC was how Justin Timberlake got his start and she actually ARGUED with me that I wasn't right about this.  And I was all "LISTEN LITTLE GIRL....MUCH OF WHAT I KNOW ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM NSYNC AND FROM JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE AND HIS JHERI CURL AND DENIM SUITS THAT MATCHED WITH BRITNEY SPEARS AND I LEARNED EVERY MOVE TO EVERY SONG AND I WAS GOING TO MARRY LANCE BASS SO I WILL THANK YOU TO STOP TALKING ABOUT NSYNC LIKE THEY WERE A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION."  #truestory

Anyway.

This got me thinking about what else in my life really makes me feel like a grown up.

Besides the fact that I pay my own bills, yada yada yada.......

1. Buying stamps - I don't know why, but for some reason the fact that I have to purchase my own stamps makes me feel like a legitimate grown up.   Maybe because when I was little I used to always go to the post office with my mom and she would buy stamps and I thought "I'm going to get to do this when I get older."

2. Having work email, setting automatic replies on work email, going on business trips - these are obviously things children don't do (unless you're a Kardashian child, probably, I feel fairly certain North came out of the womb with at least a Blackberry and gold plated microphone) but every single time I've done this I've had this feeling that I'm super grown up.  It's kind of the adult version of your AIM "away status."

3. Getting oil changes/replacing tires on my car - it may be the fact that this always involves a large transfer of money from my bank account to someone else's but this is a highly grownup act, in my opinion.

4.  Liking the news - I just love me some Lester Holt on the NBC Nightly News.  (I did love me some Brian Williams until he was a lying liar lieface, but I digress.)  I remember watching the news with my grandparents when I was little and wondering how they made it through this god-forsaken 30 minutes without dying of boredom. Now, I actually appreciate a good impartial announcement of current events. (So long as they're accurate.  Side eye to you, Brian Williams.)

Now, look, I know I'm 31 and I shouldn't have any trouble feeling like a grown up.  But am I the only one who looks around sometimes and wonders who it's 2015 and where all the years went and why children I babysat are getting married and having babies and aren't still 5 years old begging me to just watch Freaky Friday one more time?

I can't be.

What little things make you feel grown up?