"A vacation in being seventeen"

I came home yesterday from what, I suppose, qualifies as my first summer as a pseudo adult. Sure, last summer I was a pseudo pseudo adult - which basically means I was living on my own in a strange city, but I was living with a woman who had a kid of her own and who was, however dysfunctional, approximately the same age as my parents - but this is the first time I've lead a life that in any way resembles the kind of life I'd actually want to lead. The prospect that I could end up living like I did last summer in Boston - generally isolated, under-employed, totally without air-conditioning - is very real and very daunting, while the prospect I could end up living like I did this summer in Brooklyn - cramped into an apartment with two close friends and one indifferent stranger - is equally real and perhaps only slightly less daunting.

For the first time, the adulthood I dreamed of when I was twelve is actually accessible, but the very accessibility seems to rob it of the dreamlike quality - somewhere between writings checks for utilities and writing checks to my parents to repay loans, all the soft lighting and whimsical fog got swept away and I realized (with the help of an aforementioned roommate) that ultimately my life is still my life, and I'd probably still end up reading thesuperficial.com every day whether I were living in Horsham, in Manhattan, in the outer boroughs, or in a cabin in the middle of nowhere (perhaps the only exception being if said cabin lacked reliable internet access).

Which leads me to the real problem: If that's me as an adult (or pseudo adult) who am I when I'm watching "Mind of Mencia" at 11:30 on a Friday night in the bed I've slept in since I was two (not counting "Dad's house" nights and time logged in New Haven's Twin XLs) in a town I've lived in since birth (not counting a brief foray into New Jersey when my parents separated and, again, time logged in New Haven), fielding texts from ex-boyfriends and considering a trip to the basement fridge for a (hopefully-sedative) Smirnoff Twist (I'd like to say a beer, but still no) and wondering why my mom still forgoes our central air even though it's 90 degrees outside?

Maybe everyone - even real, legitimate adults with apartments and air conditioners all their own - experiences this disconnect when they come home, but there seems something particularly poignant about calling this place my "permanent address" at the bank, when - employment gods willing - I won't be living here past May 2008.