Laura, 27

            “You’re the teacher?” That’s the question I hear most often during the first weeks of school at my job as public speaking instructor at the local community college where I teach groups of students ranging from age 18 to the AARP set.

            It’s a very odd feeling to be the figure of authority in the classroom, especially when it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was a student myself. Just like my students, I still sometimes find it hard to believe that I now am, “Mrs. Judlowe, giver of all speech grades.”

            However, it’s been almost six years since my college days, and as I approach 30 I’m realizing that somewhere along the line I really did become a “grown up,” complete with a marriage and a mortgage.  

            For the first time since moving out of my parents’ house, I have a nice place to live that I actually own, as opposed to a rent-sucking dump of a college-town apartment. I can pay all my bills and have enough left over that I’m not scrambling to check my account balance every time I swipe my debit card. All of this feels great, but it also brings to mind a term from Econ 101, “opportunity cost.”

            Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, but at 27, some of the choices I’ve made have closed other doors that at 18 were wide open. Taking off to teach English in South Korea or even just moving across the country isn’t an option when you’re married and it means walking away from stable jobs or having to sell a house rather than just break a lease.

            The bottom line is in the last few years I’ve really started to feel settled. This isn’t a bad thing, but I’m finding it to be as scary as being unsure about the future. I went straight from high school to college, finished in three and a half semesters and jumped right into the “real world.” I can’t help but sometimes think that maybe I should have done a semester abroad or even just taken some time to act like an immature 20-something whose most major goal is to become reigning beer-pong champion.

            What’s scary is the realization that I’ve already made a lot of life’s most important choices, and while I’m happy with the course I’ve taken, it’s hard not to occasionally think “what if?”

            I’m not saying I’m stuck or that I have regrets, but I’ve learned growing up not only means getting older, it means coming to terms with the fact that you’re not as young as you used to be. I’m a far way from even middle age, but I’m also no longer 18. It’s a strange limbo in which one phase of your life and its opportunities has passed, and some of the benefits of adulthood are so new they fit like a pair of shoes that need broken in.

            So while I may be “Mrs. Judlowe” to my students, I’m not ready for the rest of the world to start addressing me with such a grown-up moniker – telemarketers excluded.