Harrison George

I can’t believe I’m 22.

While most kids dream about the day they finally turn 21, I was always much more interested in 22. That represented the true age of adulthood. I guess it’s because all the birthdays before that carry so much symbolism; 16, 18, 21.

But after 22 birthdays just become a thing- an amorphous semi-holiday that carries no concrete benefits. If anything, they become despised as they only serve as a reminder of how old we are getting.

So now that I’m 22, what comes next? I’m an adult now, by all legal and social standards. (The only thing I can’t do at this age is rent a car, but I don’t think that will hold me back that much.)

I certainly don’t feel like an adult. In a lot of ways I still feel exactly how I did at 16, or 18, or 21. I’ve certainly learned a lot since then, both in terms of book smarts and life experience. But personality-wise, I feel like the same person I was as a kid. I guess that’s what personality is- those characteristics that stay with you your whole life regardless of age or education.

I should point out this analysis of age was not brought on by a recent birthday; my birthday is in September. So I’ve been 22 for over five months.

The reason I bring it up now is because it’s just now dawning on me what it means to be an adult. It’s the age-old difference between knowing something and realizing it. I know I’m 22, but sometimes things happen that really make me realize I’m a “grownup.”

Two events happened to me recently. First I stumbled upon an amazing site that really conveys my experience in dealing with adulthood. The site is titled “OMG I’m the Adult”, which perfectly sums up how we all feel when we have those grand moments of realization. The site is a collection of user-submitted stories in the vein of Fmylife but to the theme of maturity.

Some are casual observations about minor events-being called “Sir” or Ma’am” by strangers, while others are downright intense.
One of my favorites: “Six Word Memoir. Sign on the dotted line. I became my mother’s legal guardian.”

You can read more of the stories at http://omgimtheadult.wordpress.com. The site isn’t as updated as often as I’d like, but it’s great to know others have experienced the surreal transition that occurs between childhood and adulthood.

Secondly, a few weeks I updated my Facebook with the following status: “I am __ years old and still can’t ___.” I was inspired to do so after coming to the depressing conclusion that I was 22 years old and still didn’t know how to properly spell the word definitely. For whatever reason, I never took the time to learn to spell it correctly, and always had to spell check it. It’s little things like that which keep me from seeing myself as an adult. “I can’t be a grown up,” I tell myself, “I don’t know how to spell definitely. Shouldn’t a grownup be able to do that?”

Anyway, the response I got was enormous- 27 people submitted their own version. The answers were astounding, ranging from the absurd (“I am 22 years old and still can’t floss.”) to the heartfelt (“I am 22 years old and I still can’t approach a stranger.”) (By the way not everyone was 22 years old, that’s just a weird coincidence.)

We all have these arbitrary conditions that we think have to be met before we can be full fledged adults. Maybe it’s owning a house, or having a kid. Or it’s being able to parallel park. Or learn to swim. Or like the taste of coffee.

I guess I drew some solace in hearing that other people were worried about growing up too. The feeling I got was no one feels ready to be a grownup; it just happens whether we like it or not.

My parents probably felt the same way I do now. One day you’re a kid goofing around with your friends, the next you are paying bills, working a job, and starting a family.

Send article as PDF to

The River Waal. Eric Hemphill/The Bulletin.

So I have been writing and re-writing this first entry for some time, and I cannot seem to produce something that I feel explains the emotions I am going through fully. I have been over and over it in my head, and I just don’t think our language, being imperfect as all forms of communication are, includes the words to describe some things. This being one of those cases, I will have to make due with what I am given in the way of the written word. Here are the facts:

Nine very long days ago, I boarded a plane with my friend Andrew Thomas. We flew twelve hours, including a layover in beautiful Newark, NJ, and landed in Amsterdam, Netherlands, at approximately 7 p.m. Central European Summer Time. This time zone is about seven hours ahead of Central Standard Time, meaning our bodies registered our arrival as being somewhere around midnight on Friday, Aug. 14.

It took sometime to get from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to the central train station in the heart of Amsterdam. Arriving there was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The city is so full of energy, even at seven in the morning, that it more than made up for two exhausted yet wide-eyed Americans’ lack of proper beauty sleep.

According to the map on the Web site of the Amsterdam Renaissance Hotel, which Andy’s father graciously booked for us, the walk to the hotel from the train station was short and fairly straightforward.

However, for two college kids on their first trip to Europe, it seems things are seldom this easy. We walked through the streets and canals surrounding the train station for nearly 30 minutes before a striking realization dawned on us—we were lost in the biggest city either of us had ever been to, 30 minutes after arriving. We must have made a circle around the hotel five or six times before we finally started to panic and began to ask directions from anyone who didn’t look as though they would have “Shanghaied” us on the spot.

Eventually, with the help of an extremely nice tour guide, we found our hotel and settled in for a quick nap that turned into a kind of jet-lagged coma. We slept for about seven hours before getting up and wondering the city for a few glimpses in to the supposed soft drug capital of the world.

At around nine o’clock the next morning, after lying awake from around 4 a.m., we dressed and enjoyed the best breakfast either of us had ever had. We packed our 100 lbs or so of luggage each and set off back to the train station to catch the one-hour train ride across the county to our home for the next 5 months—Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Nijmegen. Eric Hemphill/The Bulletin.

The train ride was highly efficient and the scenery throughout gave us a nice indication of the landscape of the country. In a lot of ways, it resembled Kansas – rolling hills and farmlands mixed with the occasional town or village. A kind of inaudible melody erupts from the countryside and quaint European farming villages.

We arrived in Nijmegen at around two o’clock CEST (that’s 7 a.m. CST, for those of you keeping track), and were greeted by members of the International Student Network here at Radboud University Nijmegen. From there we were escorted to campus to stand in lines for two or three hours until we were finally given our keys and allowed to go to our rooms… I was, in a word, exhausted.

Over the next week, the number of emotions I felt were more than in any other point in my life. Fear, resentment, elation, homesickness, anticipation and curiosity are just a few. While these emotions swirled in my head, the rest of the International students and myself were carted all over the city that week and were shown all the aspects of Nijmegen and the Netherlands which were important to get a handle on in order to live in this city. A city tour, a pub crawl, a trip to Amsterdam and a beach in Zanvoort and a weekend trip to the farming community of Putten were all included in the festivities of the orientation week.

We were being taxied around so much that there was not much time to think about home, or much of anything for that matter, so the emotions subsided to the back of my mind while I took in the sites, and had what was quite literally the time of my life.

There were moments, however, in which the nostalgia of the situation truly hit me. I had actually done it. I was in another country, learning so much so fast that I was fairly certain my head would explode if any more was crammed into it. Different people with different cultures and different languages all came together and bonded under pressures of being in a new place, seemingly completely alone. These people formed instant friendships despite historical animosity towards one another, or the difficulties of language and social dissimilarity.

This, to me, was the biggest accomplishment this week—the fact that these people from all different backgrounds and cultures could all come together and create bonds that I hope will last for a very long time. Sure, it may have been just one big party, but it was the most celestial party I’ve even been to. I don’t know if there is a god, but if there is, I imagine this is how he meant for humans to act towards one another. Learning and teaching with people you have only known for a handful of hours. No bickering, no animosity, just uncommon people finding common ground in their similarities and differences. This was the start of what I sincerely hope will be the greatest time in my life.

-Eric Hemphill

Send article as PDF to