That moment you realize you're a grown-up...

This realization has been coming over and over with some milestones I've been hitting in the past few weeks--and it happened again tonight, as I walked the backroads to downtown for my first grown-up dinner date.

I was one half of one of those (kinda nervous and very smiley) couples on one of their first dates that I've been watching my entire life while out to dinner with my parents. I was the grown-up some kid was watching--when did THAT happen? Cause last I checked, I was 12.

It happened the other day--when I got a raise at my job. Only grown-ups get raises.

Grocery shopping, cleaning, rent, listening to Morning Edition in the car on the way to work...

I'd say there's probably a moment each day lately when I've heard myself think, "...just like a grown-up!"

Do we ever really feel the age we are? I feel as if I've been waiting my whole life to be this age, doing these things, living this life--and now that I'm doing it, I can't really believe it. Though it sometimes seems like things are constantly changing, and we often grasp with lame fingers at the past, I guess change can slip by us too. Sometimes, I find myself ahead a few pages from where I thought I left off, so it's all that much more important to remind myself to live in this moment and this life and BE the grown-up.

But there are certainly still days like this: