The moment I realized I was an adult

There's been a meme circulating the internet lately where you describe the moment when you first realized you're an adult.

I've had a number of these in my life.  There was the time my 19-year-old self missed the entrance exam for the translation program, called them up and talked them into letting me retake it, and travelled to Toronto by myself for the first time in my life to do so.  There was the time, early in my current job, when I successfully did serious and hardcore research to translate a text in a field I knew nothing about and my reviser didn't even comment on it, leading me to realize that I now inhabited a milieu where we are simply expected to be competent.  But the most recent time when I realized I'm an adult was just after I bought my Bruce Springsteen tickets.

I asked around to find out who wanted to go with me and I had a number of non-committal expressions of interest, but, as of the day when tickets went on sale, I had no firm commitments.  But I wanted to go, and I didn't want to go alone.  So I bought two tickets.

At that point, I realized, I could do whatever I wanted and no one would ever know.  I could go with a friend. I could go with a casual acquaintance.  I could go with a co-worker or family member or friend of a friend.  If I was reduced to trying to find some random person to go with, I could tell them that a friend had agreed to go and then had to back out at the last minute.  If I was desperate, I could eat the cost and tell them my friend had already paid for it.  I could sell the extra ticket and sit next to some random stranger.  I could sell both tickets and probably turn a profit.  I could even chicken out completely, eat the cost of both tickets, and just not go, leaving two mysterious empty seats on the 100 level.  And no one would ever know that I bought tickets without a friend to go with, or even that I bought tickets at all, unless I chose to tell them.

When I was a kid, this wasn't an option.  If I wanted to go to something, I had to get parental permission for where I was going and who I was going with.  If I didn't have a friend to go with, my parents would know, which meant my sister would know (and make fun of me for it), which meant my peers would know (and make fun of me for it).  If I asked around trying to find someone to go with, people would know that I didn't have someone to go with, which my peers might make fun of me for.  If I chickened out at the last minute, I'd get lectured by my parents for chickening out (and possibly forced to go anyway, to my humiliation) and possibly made fun of by my sister for not having friends.  Because our house has unforgiving acoustics, sneaking out wasn't possible, and staying home without my family knowing wasn't possible.

But here in true adulthood, I can buy tickets without having to go, I can go without having to prearrange a friend to go with, and I can keep whatever aspects I want private from whomever I want, all without at any point being shamed for not having plans fall perfectly into place.

And, best of all, after all this angst I ended up being able to share the experience of my very first Bruce Springsteen concert with a true friend!