When I was little, I always drank Ribena out of a wine glass. It made me feel proper, adult-like, classy. As if I had a certain sense of maturity to show for my seven year-old self. I’d hold the stem of the glass in between my fingers, and my palm would cup the glass, like those ladies that I had seen in the movies. They knew what they were doing, with their life, with their being. You could tell by the way they held their wine so elegantly, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Adulthood, ha! I couldn’t wait for it.
I realised I was an adult around two weeks ago. I had gone to a restaurant with my friend, and we had gazed over the wine list before going with our trusty friend, Rosè. Ready for my wine to be poured into my glass, the waiter paused, before asking me if I’d like to try the wine. Now, of course I will try your wine, however, to have both my friend and the waiter watch me as I sip my wine, taste it, like it, and tell him to proceed pouring, felt slightly awkward. That moment right there was the switch that clicked. I was finally an adult. I understood that my Ribena days were over, and, for a minute, I couldn’t really remember when I had made the transition from that sweet juice to the slightly more sophisticated version.
In fact, the more I came to think of it, I couldn’t really remember any of the transition. There I was, drinking wine and talking about what I was planning on doing once I went back to university. In reality, I hadn’t even thought about school, let alone enrolled for the new semester. My transition into adulthood had been almost unnoticeable. There were those smaller moments: missing the bus to uni, walking home from a house party with the girls, deciding between a skirt or jeans, biting my nails before an exam, my Dad gifting me a guitar, my Mum telling me to study theatre, painting my nails on a Thursday afternoon (without smudging it), climbing mountains somewhere in Italy, plaiting my hair, buying apple pie in the Blue Mountains, falling in love with a live orchestra, crying because of an assignment deadline, crying again listening to Gregory Alan Isakov, forgetting to spin the washing, and catching the train back to my hometown. Truthfully, there had been no plan this whole time. Actually, I hadn’t been able to make up my mind since I was about five.
At six, I wanted to become a singer. At ten, I wanted to be a teacher. At twelve, I thought about being a vet Then, at fifteen, a lawyer, and at eighteen an actress. Now, here I am, at twenty, a Theatre and English major, with a passion for writing and journalism.
Your twenties are a confusing time. Some of your friends might be traveling the world, whilst others are trying to get by with their jobs and university. To you, however, it may feel like everyone is somehow one step ahead of you. You’ve made some mistakes perhaps, or at least you think you have, whether it was taking a gap year or choosing the wrong major (I’ve definitely had that debacle), and now you can’t help but think that you should’ve made a different choice. Some people say there’s no formula to solving this equation, whilst others tell me to plan plan plan.
How am I supposed to feel like a true adult? My Grandma still refers to me as her “little girl”, but my parents think of me as an official adult. Do you see how contradictory this is? And yes, I might be an adult, but shouldn’t adults be confident in their choices, or at least know whether they want weet-bix or a yogurt bowl for breakfast? Maybe, at the end of the day, we’re all just children living inside of adult bodies. I still see the inner child of my Mum when she’s excited about that game of tennis we’re about to watch, or my Dad’s inner child when he’s in the kitchen making another loaf of bread.
I still love to drink Ribena out of a wine glass. Mum thinks I’m childish for doing so, and maybe it is, but I’m a girl who enjoys writing about my Ribena obsessions whilst also contemplating the major crisis of your twenties. I love to sit outside and watch the wind wrestle with our lavender, and draw flowers on a random piece of paper that’s been lying around the house. I’ve always loved to do it, only now I’m just a bit older. There’s something weirdly metaphorical but equally comforting in knowing that a part of us will stay childish forever.
