Apparently I have matured quite a bit recently, so says my father and mother-in-law, who had time to talk about yours truly this past weekend over breakfast.

If I am so grown up, then why is my laundry piled high in my closet? If I am so grown up, why do I use my wife’s toothbrush because I can never remember what color mine is?

If I am so grown up, then why do I have no job, a car that doesn’t work, a fragile grasp on personal hygiene and absolutely no clue what do with my life?

Telling someone he has matured is like telling someone in a bad mood to have a nice day. It’s a curse.

Great; everything is my responsibility now. I have received three letters in as many days from the management company who oversees my apartment building.

“Dear resident: your rent is late; dear resident, please replace the letter designation on your front door; dear resident, your car is inoperable and will be towed in four days if you do not do something about it.”

I’m real grown up, huh?

So what does it mean to be grown up, I ask myself as I drink out of the milk carton.

In order to answer this question I turned to the only person who knows more about being a grown-up than anyone else I know.

Mom.

She is also, consequently, the only person who hasn’t said that I have matured lately.

My mother earned her honorary title at the tender age of 16.

If there is anyone who can tell me if I am mature or what being mature means, it is she.

“What does it mean to be mature, and is it the same thing as being an adult?” I asked her.

“Being mature is being able to handle situations and problems without boiling up-using your head and not your emotions. There are plenty of quote unquote ‘grown-ups’ who act like children,” she said.

I see… so the next time someone pisses me off, I should confront them and use “I feel” statements instead of taking a crap on the hood of their car.

I recently watched the movie “Swimming with Sharks,” in which actor Kevin Spacey says, “If you haven’t turned rebel by age 18 then you haven’t got any heart; if you haven’t turned establishment by the age of 30 then you haven’t got any brains.”

For me, the point of this dialogue is that there is a difference between being mature and being an adult.

Being mature is about taking responsibility for your actions.

Your parents will not always be there to wipe your behind, so the sooner you learn to point your arse in the right direction, the better.

So if I am maturing, then it is like a snowball rolling downhill, slowly gathering speed until I am an unstoppable force, or until I am 40 and on welfare, whichever comes first.

It doesn’t matter if you know what you want to do with yourself.

It doesn’t even matter if you still eat Twinkies for breakfast and chicken strips for lunch.

That’s not what being a mature is about.

It is about making decisions that will ensure a better tomorrow.

So as much as it pains me to admit that I might be maturing, it pains me even more to realize just how immature I am.

Responsibility is not a curse; it is the price we pay for making our own decisions. It is the cost of our independence.

Some of us just catch on quicker than others.

Now where the hell are my keys?