When Are You Really A Grown Up?

I always wondered how you knew when you where really a grown up.  When I was a child, I figured a certain age made you a grown up.  Later in life I thought.....well, it's when you feel grown up.   Then I learned a grown up had lots of responsibilities.  Maybe that made you grown up.

I have now come to realize that, I don't know when I will be grown up.  They say you are the age you feel.  I always felt very young at heart but with an old soul.  This made it very confusing for me. 

A few months ago, I realized I was calling the girls at the check out counter at the local grocery store kids.  They where either girls that had just graduated high school or where about to.  Then I found myself calling some young mother at the library a kid with a kid.   I even found my self thinking that the 25 year old girls I know act so much like kids.  "They don't know anything about life yet" is what I thought.  "They will just have to learn through trial and error like the rest of us" was my next thought.  Oh my!!! Does that make me old!!!!

This is when it hit me.  These are the age groups I use to associate myself with as equal.  When did I start thinking of these people as kids?  I'm going to be 30 in two months.  Is that it?  No, I don't think so.  I think I am just figuring out that I am now a grown up.  When did it happen?  I'm not sure.  I think it just happened. 

Does anyone else feel this way?  Did being a grown up just sneak up on you?  I don't think it had anything to do with age.  I know people a good bit older than me with more kids than me, and they still didn't grow up yet.  What do you think?