Am I growing OLD or growing UP?

It isn't hard to enjoy growing at my age. I can wear those ratty old jeans that my mother condemned years ago. I can stay out all night, or all weekend, if the mood strikes me. I can eat cake for breakfast and have pizza for dessert. Getting older, at this point, is great.

Then there are little reminders that I'm supposed to be maturing as each birthday passes. I'm supposed to be ready for separation from my best-friends-since-middle-school. I shouldn't be so concerned about the fact that one has just moved to Hawaii and I can't just show up at her door anymore. That's what happens when you grow up, right? People's interests change and they leave.

I recognize that moving as a fact of life, but I still haven't come to terms with the number of weddings I've been to or the engagements I've witnessed over the past year. Two friends have been "dropped" (the Greek equivalent of a promise ring) and three more with actual promise rings. One new bride is already pregnant after her one-year anniversary. She'll have her first child before she can have her first beer.

I have a friend who explained the madness the best. Or maybe she's the best example of the madness. Regardless, she has set up her future as a simple math problem. We start backwards with the fact that she wants to be finished having kids when she is thirty. So, we'll say that from age 28-30 she's having babies. Now, she will also make sure she's had at least two years of marital bliss before the children arrive. So she will be around 26 at her wedding. But, she isn't just going to rush into love, she wants time to make sure he's the one. 3-5 years for a thorough background check and compatibility test. My friend must then meet the man of her dreams by the time she is 23, at the latest. This doesn't factor in all the Mr. Wrongs that inevitably show up in your life just to slow you down.

Maybe I'm still immature, but I'm beginning to feel like I chased some bizarre little bunny down the wrong rabbit hole. I don't belong here, among the first houses and new spouses. I'm only now getting to know a guy I can see myself dating past Christmas. For me, that's a huge step. In my eyes, I'm growing up.

We're all supposed to be different and therefore incapable of making the same decisions at the same time, but when your clubbing friends are busy making dinner for their families on Friday night you have to wonder if there is a secret age for adulthood. When should growing old and growing up coincide?