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Turning 18

Turning 18 – Becoming Aware

I have always been confidant in who I am, but when I turned eighteen I started to question, “Am I an adult or am I still a kid?” I really am not sure, and feel that this question is a necessary one to answer in order to truly know myself. I want to find out if I have changed going to the Oxbow boarding school, and if being eighteen really means that I have to grow up. I am legally an adult to the government, but I also know that I am not an emotionally and mentally fully mature person yet. Am I immature for my age? Should I have already grown up? “What does it mean to grow up-to be an adult?” To be a successful adult means that a person is emotionally and mentally aware of themselves, can be self-reliant, engages in healthy relationships, and takes responsibility for the choices they make.
What does it legally mean to be an adult? An adult to the government is an eighteen-year-old person, who can vote, write a will, get medical treatment on their own, and the most relevant to my project is completely independent from parental control. I do not technically live with my parents anymore, but still I don’t feel independent. I have yet to decide if this means that my boarding school is too strict or if I subconsciously do not want to be independent from my home and family. When a person turns eighteen there are also the downsides of being an independent adult. An legal adult can be tried in an adult court and can go to jail, parents do not have to support their children anymore, they are eligible for jury duty, and can start to receive taxes. Even though these new “responsibilities” may be too much for an eighteen-year-old to handle, it is the law. It’s not turning a legal adult that scares me; it is that I could be forced to have these responsibilities when I am not ready for them. During my life I have been very sheltered from these adult like responsibilities and hope that being eighteen will not force too many upon me. I think...