Why amateur adults?

I remember, at seventeen, feeling that when the clock struck midnight and I was eighteen I would be a bona fide adult.  I mean it was the law.  I would literally be the law that I was an adult, you can't argue with that!  On my eighteenth birthday I drove my parents car to the mall, took the last twenty five dollars out of my checking account and got a piercing all on my own.  I didn't feel like an adult, I felt broke and like my new earning was kind of cute.  Six months later I went to college thinking maybe this would be what it took to make me an adult.  Long story short, I cried a lot, I changed my major, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. My debit card got declined at a convenience store. I didn't feel like an adult, I felt overwhelmed and lonely and broke. It got better, I loved college, I learned and grew in ways I had never imagined. I worked hard.  I got an apartment with my friends. I felt independent and fabulous and loved and challenged (and broke.)

By the next milestone I had figured out, for the most part, that everyone is just winging it.  On my twenty first birthday I bought a dress that looked like judy jetson in da club, wore tall shoes, and went to bars with my friends.  We sat on the floor of that same apartment eating french fries and singing hymns.  I started to realize the switch I had imagined would never flip, and instead I might just start to feel like an adult a growing proportion of the time.  I got some great babysitting jobs and killed it at school.  I felt full and capable and, with a growing savings account, fabulously wealthy. Then I graduated college and began to feel like I was suddenly playing for keeps.  I went on vacation with my boyfriend, bought throw pillows for that apartment, one of my student loan payments bounced.  I feel like an adult sometimes, other times I stare at the dishes in my sink and then go back to bed.  With the help of my very wise mother, and some great articles on impostor syndrome I'm realizing that this whole adult thing is a process, and I'm not in some strange extended adolescence, I'm just new to this.  An amateur adult, but an adult nonetheless.

I don't think that my experience is unique.  I believe that most of us trying to navigate this time in our lives are a little lost.  amateur adults is a spot for me to take this journey with whoever wants to join me.  To reflect as well as share what I've learned about the practicalities of living independently.  Why do I feel like an impostor in my own life?  What the heck is the deal with  renters insurance?  How do I file my taxes?  I'm figuring all of that out, and I want you to join me!