Pros and Cons of Being a Grown-Up

I had a moment this morning, powering through my work and listening to my MP3 (No, I do not have an iPod, for a reason) when I felt very adult-like. Typing fast, jamming out to Suffragette City and Sunshine Highway, and being totally productive, something I'm mostly able to do now that I don't have to leave halfway through the day to go to school. It was awesome.
    While being a grown-up does suck on occasion: losing a significant amount of my paycheck to taxes, paying rent to apartment Nazis that shut off my water every other week, paying bills, the possibility of getting called for jury duty (yeah, good luck with that one--I've got so many addresses my name is connected to in the past five years!). I wish I could think of more grown-up responsibilities that didn't involve money, but unfortunately, it seems that my life does revolve around finances at the moment.
    There are some pluses to being an adult: I can legally purchase alcohol, I can pay for my own gas (that could be a negative, but for me, it's a pretty big responsibility), I can give money to charity and write it off on my taxes, I can rent an apartment, I can complain to the apartment managers and my complaint actually carries weight, and I can buy my own stuff. That may not seem like much, and much of it does still have to do with money, but being able to support yourself, even if it's rather frugally, is a pretty cool thing.
    I've been living off my parents for twenty-two years, and to be able to pay for my own movie tickets, take my parents out to dinner, buy my own groceries, and even cook some of my own meals. So, adulthood has some things going for it, and some things that are a pain in the ass. I do miss childhood though. I enjoyed high school. It was the only time in my life I really had friends. Almost all my friends are long-distance friends now.
    And I enjoyed life when I was little. My Barbies and stuffed animals, the Bailey School Kids books, R.L. Stine books, getting hooked on movies that weren't produced by Disney, learning to read and write, and learning I was pretty good at both. I think I'm still somewhere in between being a kid and being a grown-up. I only act grown-up around other grown-ups. On my own or with people I'm close to, I act like the crazy teenager I was a few years ago.
    As much as I enjoyed being a kid (though at the time, I couldn't grow up fast enough), I like being grown up too, at least 60 or 70 percent of the time. We may take on more responsibilities and have to deal with things way beyond our maturity level being older, but as long as we never lose our childish enthusiasm, we can stay young at heart. (Side note: I just quoted 2 movies and a song in one sentence. Which ones?)

Live long and prosper.