I'm a nerd... but I'm a grown-up nerd.

You know, I find it interesting that no one really knows when adulthood sets in. My sophomore English class reading list (heads up Annie, Katie, Keller, etc- this is your future) was entirely comprised of books about adolesence, and we would constantly discuss the idea of crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood.
In the Jewish faith, it's customary to declare boys as men and girls as women when they reach the age of 13. I was just telling my brother how jealous I am that in the next year he'll get to go to his friend's Bar Mitzvah, because I never went to one. In the US, legally I'll be an adult in 166 days on my 18th birthday.
But is that standard for everyone?
Do some people grow up at 15? Do some wait until they're in their twenties to truly mature to adulthood?
I've been thinking about this for a long time now. I guess it started the first time I got behind the wheel of a car alone as a licensed driver. And that was a year and a half ago.
Those of you who were on Elevation know that Little Miss Sunshine is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's technically a comedy, but it has a lot of profound themes in it. I love the scene where Uncle Frank is telling Dwayne how being a teenager is all about the difficult experiences. To paraphrase, he says that you don't have to have your life in order. You can be messed up and a social outcast, but you can still grow. In fact, it's the people who suffer who grow up most. In Frank's words... "High School? Those are your prime suffering years, man! Think about all the growing you'd miss out on if you didn't have to go through it all."
I'm not claiming that I've suffered any great injustice, or that my life as any more bleak and unfair than anyone else's. I'm just musing that maybe it's our experiences - both good and bad - that make us adults.
Change is inevitable, and growing up is unpredictable. But no one wants to miss out on living life. Get out there and experience it.
Live big. Stay classy.