And I’m not counting things like what you do or get when you grow up like having a bank account or getting a real job. Nor am I accepting the whole ‘I just grew up’.
My sign of my childhood ending or accepting that it has ended is when all of the nu-metal bands I was introduced to and listened to a lot of us just ended up fractured. They all didn’t endure the passage of time and it was really just a matter of you had to be there to know how popular they were or the scene was.
The bands I used to have listened to have gone the way of Classic Rock on the radio. Spammed tracks from some bands because that’s all the DJ knows or that’s all they’re allowed to play.
When one of your parents dies when you’re only 6 years old.
Work, home, marriage, children. Having a real sense of responsibility.
Lower back went out
When, given a choice between doing something fun and something necessary that can be easily put off, you default to doing the necessary.
I remember when I just couldn’t play with toys anymore. Making a story about Barbie & Co. suddenly just didn’t happen anymore.
Also, some radio said they were putting on a “classic” and it was “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce.
Nothing ages you like talking to an actual young person.
I worked with a software engineer several years ago that was about a decade younger than me. A few of us were talking about first games, and he mentioned playing his dad’s PlayStation and his first game being on the PS2. Our first games were all Master System, NES, all 2D. He said, and I quote, “I wasn’t born when graphics were shit”.
Oof
Well, fuck… growing up with an Atari 2600 makes me ancient, then!
On another note, have you tried UFO 50? 50 modern designed “NES style” games for $25.
I’d have paid $5 for a couple of the games in the set by themselves, been having a blast.
When the aliens who secretly physically resemble demons show up to help your entire species reach their next phase of evolution, ascension to a higher plane of existence.
When your favorite sports team’s stars are younger than you.
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When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. -C.S Lewis
following this i would say when you stop wanting to be grown-up. and that certainly tracks for me
When you turn 18 and suddenly the government starts sending you paperwork to fill out.
At one point when I was in my mid to late-twenties, my workplace’s neighbor had their sprinkler system fail and flood their business. It was so bad that a bunch of water seeped under the adjoining wall and we had about a half an inch of water across a third of our fairly large store. There were maybe a dozen or so of us working there at the time, and we all got called in to rapidly move merchandise out into a big truck so that it wouldn’t get spoiled by the damp air before the remediation guys could do their thing.
So there’s all of these people, most of them younger than me, but not by a lot, running back and forth with crates of merchandise, and I looked around and immediately saw how chaotic and inefficient it was.
So I said, “Okay, you stand by the truck. You stand by the front door, you stand just inside. You stand a little further in than that. The first person just picks up a crate, and we bucket brigade it all out to the truck.”
It was an obvious solution, and it made the work go by so much faster and easier, but apparently I was the only one who thought to do it. I realized that in that moment, in a moderately large group, I was the most responsible adult in the room.
And I’m pretty sure that was when my childhood ended.
Christmas becomes a deadline.
I feel this every year man
I left for college at 18, but that wasn’t it for me. It was one month later when my parents announced a divorce and I realized my home life would never be the same. College still felt big and scary, but I couldn’t even go back to the comforts of my childhood ever again.
I don’t know, but it might be the time when I ran out of ideas of what to get for christmas. As a kid I always wanted something like cars, lego, sport stuff, bike, whatever came to my mind. I rarely got those things, but my mind was always in “I want that” mode. But growing up I realized I don’t need most those things and also that my parents tried hard to get me at least something so I just “gave up” and asked for actually useful stuff (clothing, socks, etc).
Adding to that, I actually started appreciating a pair of good quality socks.
I have become that cliche where I genuinely look forward to getting socks under the tree on Christmas morning.
I’m a grown ass man who can at any point in any day decide to get in my automobile and go to any store and buy a mountain of socks, or order a pallet of socks to be drop-shipped to the door of my grown up house on a whim.
But I prefer to suffer holy toes and see through heels in anticipation of starting fresh on Christmas morn.
When I realized this in my soul, I was no longer a child.
I feel you, I get exited to get a fresh sponge for dish wasing
