When I was six, “adult” looked like someone tall. At twelve, “adult” looked like my sister and her friends listening to cool music in her room, which of course was Britney Spears and NSYNC. And at sixteen, “adult” looked like the pretty girls, faces loaded with makeup, who didn’t get carded when they asked for a drink at the bar. And now, “adult” just looks like having your life figured out.

But what really makes an adult? Since my earlier years, I have learned that there is a little more to being an adult than being tall or listening to cool music.

Teenagers are expected to emerge from high school as adults. It’s as if students are supposed to magically become adults once they are handed their diploma and they walk off the stage. But some of the students who walk the halls of NASH have already been “adulting” for years, while some of the so-called “adults” sitting in the stands, cheering as students receive their diplomas, are adults perhaps only by name.

I can start by telling you what an adult isn’t. You are not an adult just because your house looks like it came out of an IKEA ad or because you drive an expensive car. You are not an adult just because you do your own laundry or make your own meals. Just because you bought a pet fish and you’ve managed to keep it alive for a month, it does not mean you’re an adult!

There is so much more to being an adult than looking like you have everything figured out. Even though someone comes over and thinks to themselves, “Wow, she must have her life figured out because she can take care of another life (the fish),” they don’t know that you actually forgot to feed it three times this week! It is hard to tell if someone is truly an adult because people who look like they have everything figured out often don’t.

And this is where I get to my main point. Many students follow through with their twelve years of education, get a diploma, go to college, and, yes, are adults. These kids know that they don’t have everything figured out and they’re okay with that because they know that not everything needs to be perfect. These kids are the ones who have been adults for years because through high school they didn’t have everything figured out. They struggled with things and they needed help along the way, and admitting that makes them adults.

On the other hand, there are kids who think they’re adults because their lives have always been picture-perfect. But when life forces these kids to put aside materialistic things, like the luxury car their parents bought them, they may realize their life is messy, too.

Some students at NASH will graduate as adults, and others might need a few more years of life experience before becoming an adult. The first step towards being an adult is understanding that having a picture-perfect life isn’t really that important and being okay with that.

So, are you an adult? Or are you just faking it?