This being an adult thing is kind of crazy at times.  I often find myself faced with situations that seem too, well, grown-up for me.  Probably because deep down (when I’m not actually looking in a mirror or being pulled in five different directions by small hands) I still feel like that girl in her early twenties, trying to figure things out.

Now here we are in our forties, full-on invested in this adult life.  With kids and careers, mortgages and car payments, BrightSide and I have been together for almost two decades of marriage (plus a few years of dating on top of that).  It’s a bit staggering.

When we said our vows, though, I was ready.  I knew the grown-up responsibilities would begin adding up once we started down this path together: graduate college, get a job, get married, rent an apartment and then buy our first house.  Add in a dog or two and we were off and running.  It’s not like I didn’t notice that Big Stuff was happening.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the way things would change with our friends.   It turns out they’re all growing up, too, and this has rocked my world.

I went to a lot of friends’ weddings in my twenties, occasions that didn’t feel particularly unusual for me.  Probably because it’s about where my own life was at that time, so it all seemed very…familiar. Over the last decade or so, though, we’ve started experiencing things that are so very real, and it makes me wonder what the next forty years will bring.

Seeing my friends morph into parental figures is equal parts bizarre and amusing.  Hearing someone who broke curfew or drink with me talk about potty training and school issues is like two worlds colliding.  Even though I do recognize that we’re all growing up, I had to learn to look at old friends with new eyes.  I can only imagine what this must be like for BrightSide, who sees far more people that he knew in his younger years than I do.

It’s been really strange seeing friends from my own younger years transform into, well, adults. Kids like me who grew up to be lawyers, nurses, a CIO, even a minister, for crying out loud.  Even more mind boggling?  The year my baby brother (sorry, I know you’re an adult now but these things are hard to shake) became the Commanding Officer of a naval ship.  I mean, COME ON.  How’s a girl supposed to absorb this stuff??

Some of the changes are a lot more real than diaper issues, though.  In 2006 my best friend lost her dad, and I realized she was the first person I’d actually been with while she faced this kind of trauma. Other friends had lost their parents or grandparents, but sista-friend was the first person I was literally with while she dealt with her grief over losing her father.  I think back on the weekend we went to the funeral and wonder how on earth she handled it so well.  Our choir sang for her dad’s service, and I vividly recall choking my way through one of the verses of Amazing Grace.  That song still brings tears to my eyes because it’s so firmly linked to watching her say goodbye to her father.

Sadly, many of my friends are beginning to take care of their aging parents.  Sometimes I think I’m a bit further along this path since my parents were older when they had their kids, but there are enough of us going through it to know that everyone is dealing with their own struggles.  Some of us have parents who are sick.  Some have parents who are growing more forgetful or belligerent. Undercurrents that have run through a family for decades rise to the surface, causing conflict and discord.  I see my friends trying to navigate these waters, trying to adjust to becoming the (sometimes unpopular) decision-maker, and they see me working on many of the same issues.  It turns out watching your parents get older is incredibly hard.

I get the whole circle-of-life thing, I really do.  I spent my fair share of time under The Lion King’s tutelage.  But it is a whole lot harder to do in real life than that song implies.

I’ve also had to watch a few of my friends work their way though a divorce, too.  Before I experienced it personally I’d never understood why this would even be a problem for bystanders; I mean, your friends are your friends.  If they’re no longer together, then they’re your separate friends, but their core relationship to you wouldn’t have changed.  Then real life changed my entire perspective.

While the couple divorcing deals with the most heat, I was surprised by how much fallout there was for the friends surrounding them.  Things I’d never even considered suddenly came into play:  Were they both still the people I knew and loved?  What had I learned by watching how they treated one another?  Had something changed so irreparably that one of the friendships couldn’t survive? These were hard truths to face followed by even harder choices to be made.  Grown-up choices. Choices that, frankly, sometimes suck.

Looking forward, I see all of the changes that lie ahead of us.  The kids leaving for college and then figuring out what to do with an influx of freedom.  Though I find it impossible to picture, I know we’ll probably have weddings and maybe even grandchildren in our future.  Eventually BrightSide and I (along with our friends) will become the older generation, while our children move through this experience of growing into their own adulthood.

The circle of life indeed.