Oh, so you think you’re grown? by Doniesha R. Brisbon
What makes a person grown? Many believe age determines this. Te legal age of consent is 17 in most states, while you can’t gamble or drink until you’re 21. So many of us had our calendars marked, anticipating our 18th birthday. A day we can do as we please, answer to no one, make our own rules, right? We all find out at some point or another that life doesn’t necessarily work that way. I was no different. Te year tragedy hit Te Big Easy was the year I turned 20 years old. Fairly new to adult life but still living home with my mom, we hit quite a few bumps in the road. She gave me a curfew. You can’t give an adult a curfew. She eavesdropped on my conversation, adding her thoughts and she went as far as to tell me some places were off limits. How am I 2 years past the adult age and she’s still treating me like a child.
August 27, 2005, was the day my family was set to evacuate for Hurricane Katrina. We were supposed to go by some family who lived higher up, off the ground. I met this cute guy and had plans of my own. Surely, I’m of age to decide where I wanted to evacuate. Adults make these sorts of decisions all the time and it’s about time I start moving and acting like the adult I was. As my mother loaded my brothers and their belongings in the car, I told her I wasn’t going. She yelled at me so loud, “You think because you can legally buy cigarettes, you’re grown? You have a long ways to go” Her voice echoing through the empty deserted streets. It hurt me to see her obviously in pain, but I was adamant about not evacuating with them. I stood my ground as I watched my mother drive off to safety.
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Being a New Orleans native all my life, we never truly thought the storm would be as bad and as devastating as it was. I couldn’t have imagined that I would be bussed to another state and in that moment, life as I knew it was forever changed. Just a few weeks ago, I was a carefree college student living with my mom, surrounded by family, love and support. Now I’m in some foreign place with a man I barely know, everyone I know is at least 200 miles away. For the next several weeks, I called my mom, or my aunts for everything: how to cook, the most efficient way to pay bills, shops for household things and tons of relationship questions.
So, was I truly grown? In the eyes of the law, yes. I was grown. I could work insane hours without anyone calling the labor board, stay out without fear of truancy and purchase alcohol but in the day-to-day things I was completely lost. Adulthood starts at 18 but it’s just the beginning and I still required lots of guidance well into my 20’s. On that day, many years ago I learned that age doesn’t determine when one is truly grown. Your mindset and life experiences do. And, that life is just a series of decisions made, good and bad. Te decision I made that day many moons ago set the tone for how the next few years of my life would go. But hey I was grown enough to make that decision but was it a good sound decision though or should I have listened to my mother? I sure wish I had…
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