When are you a grown up?

A few days ago Dave and I got the news that some friends of ours are expecting their first baby. Then I found out some other friends are under contract to buy their first condo. And that made me think, "Wow, we're all growed up!"

Many of my friends have had babies and bought homes in recent years, but these are the caboose people, that last of the bunch taking the plunge into the oh-so-adult world of parenthood and homeownership. The American dream, if you will. And that got me thinking even more. When do you know you're a grown up?

I'm not talking about when the U.S. government tells you that you're a legal adult, or when you're finally allowed to drink without a fake ID, but when do you feel like a grown up? Is it when you graduate from college? Get your first real job? Get married? Buy a house? Have a baby? Treat your parents to dinner? Buy your own plane ticket home?

There are so many milestones to choose from and I think it's wholly a personal experience. Getting married may have been your moment of "Oh my God, I will never sleep with another person again and now I'm an adult." Getting your first real job may have been caused you to think, "Geez, they're paying me more than minimum wage so I better not screw this up." My friend, Amber, says it was when she finally owned a car that didn't require her to crank down the windows by hand.

As I said, it's all relative. For me, I've had glimpses of adulthood along the way. I think it is a big deal when you go out to dinner with your parents and throw down your credit card rather than expecting them to. I remember my Dad and his father fighting over who was going to pay the bill when we went out to eat as a family, both of them trying to assert their sense of adulthood (not to mention manhood).

For years when I was living in San Diego after college waiting tables and figuring out what the heck to do with my liberal arts degree (and no, I didn't feel like a grown up yet), my mom would pay to fly me to Boulder, Colo. to visit her. It took a few more years before I bought my own plane ticket without even thinking about it.

So no, I didn't feel like a grown up when I went away to college, or graduated college, or got my first job after college, or moved across the country, or went to graduate school in New York City, or got my first reporting job in New Jersey, or moved to Miami for my second reporting job, or moved to Chicago to be an editor. I was acting like an adult, sure. But I didn't feel like one.

You know when I felt like a grown up? One word: mortgage.

For some reason, the second I decided to buy my own place, I felt like an adult. The fact that I was going to put down roots after a decade of figuring out what to do with my life, who I was, and where I was meant to be, was a big deal for me. A bigger deal than I expected, actually. The fact that I was going to owe a bank more than $200,000 made an impression. Sure, I had graduate school debt, but it was nothing compared to what I was going to owe Bank of America for a 30-year fixed loan on a one-bedroom condo in Lincoln Park. Plus, I was single. So it was all on me.

The view from my condo the day we got married

I remember a sleepless night I had shortly after submitting an offer for my condo. It wasn't the mortgage payment I was so worried about. That I knew I could cover. But in addition to the mortgage, I was going to have to pay a pretty high monthly condo fee. The unit is in a vintage building built nearly 100 years ago. And you know what that means: The walls and foundation may be solid, but everything else needs a lot of upkeep, including pricy items like plumbing and electrical wiring.

(Every time the condo association raises the assessment, they can't help themselves from reminding everyone that we, "live in an older building." Yes, me and my checkbook know that, thank you.)

So I called my friend, Heather, who lives in New York City. She was the right one to call because a "high" condo fee in Chicago sounds miniscule to someone living in Manhattan. "That's nothing!" she said. Suddenly I felt okay about paying a little more than I thought I should. I felt my feet under me again.

After I had signed my initials on 70 pages of mortgage goobledygook and closed, my friend, Nancy, came over with a bunch of sage to purify the space. She lit the sage, the earthy smell filling the apartment, and walked the perimeter of each room holding out the smoldering herb to let the smoke ward off bad spirits. Yes, it was a little hippy dippy but I was touched that a friend would go to so much trouble to help me make my home a safe, special place. My own personal sanctuary (and yes, okay, Bank of America's, too).

As I was moving in, I realized that all of the furniture I had accumulated since college — the coffee table from Target, the bookshelf and desk I had assembled from Ikea, the chest of drawers from God knows where — suddenly looked sad and juvenile in my big girl condo. So I did another grown up thing: I went to Marshall Field's and bought a bedroom set made out of real wood. A platform bed, dresser drawers and matching mirror. It even had an armoire.

I went to Room and Board and ordered a walnut plank kitchen table with solid, steel legs and began my search for the perfect kitchen chairs. I called another friend, Aixa, to make sure I wasn't crazy to buy a white leather couch I had fallen in love with. She assured me that the fact I had no pets or children meant it was, indeed, the perfect time to make such a purchase. So I did.

Since then, I have had all kinds of opportunities to feel like an adult. I've gotten married, had a baby, and purchased many more plane tickets to go home for Christmas and other family visits. None of those have felt quite as adult-like as that initial mortgage. And yet the milestones just keep coming.

In less than two weeks Owen will be 1 year old. And when I think about that fact, I don't feel so much older, more mature or adult-like. I just feel incredibly, wonderfully grateful.