The American adolescence has expanded to include those far too old and too young to fit its historic parameters. As if to keep up with a geographic suburban sprawl, so too has chronological maturity become bloated with ever more people. The result is 13-year-olds who dress like they are 23, and 25-year-olds who behave like they are 15. America’s famous suburban sprawl has taken on chronological proportions. Nobody wants to be treated like a child and nobody wants to grow up, which means those of us in our late twenties are coming to the much delayed end of the ride.

In Jewish tradition, one becomes a man or a woman around 13. In the legal tradition, that number hovers around 18. In reality, however, the twenties are the new teen years. A growing number of twenty-somethings live with their parents, or at least get financial assistance from them. Because we are no longer physically children, however, we are able to avoid curfews, oversight of our clothing choices and lectures about our behavior. It is wonderful.

For those of you who are undergraduates, let me paint a picture of life after college for the twenty-something. You will work at least five, if not eight, different jobs over the next few years. You will have no idea what to do with your life. At some point you will know exactly what you might want to do and then change your mind. You will probably fall in and out of love with the wrong person and in the process behave appallingly. You will travel a bit. You will possibly end up back in graduate school because the idea of professional studenthood appeals to you. You will make a list of what you hope to achieve by 30 and then one day you will realize that you are in your late twenties.

This year will be my 10-year high school reunion back east. Over the holidays while visiting home, I caught up with several friends from both high school and college. We drank wine and sat up in bars and living rooms and talked about where we were in life. We were surprised to find ourselves so old and yet so lost.

I attended a friend’s office party in New York in one of the skyscraper financial companies that has yet to collapse. I overheard people discussing their cash gifts from bosses and scoffing at anything below a thousand dollars. Ah, I thought, these people are financially sound; they can return to their reunions a roaring success. Then I talked to them and found out none of them was working their ideal job. A tall 29 year old told me his dream was to join the secret service or FBI someday and be a hero. A woman in a bizarre dress wistfully said she wished she had moved back to France after college. While the party attendants were not defeated by a sense that it was too late to change their lives, they were also not buoyed by the same sense of endless opportunity felt at 22. Some doors had already closed for them (nobody there could hope to become an astronaut or Olympic swimmer) and some were in the process of closing.

My friend Joe has a job that is the envy of all his friends from college. He’s an international correspondent, working as a journalist is Jerusalem. He still wonders if he should be married with kids by now, and if he will ever be. As for me, I am married with kids and I wonder if I’ll ever have as exciting a life as Joe.

When we were small, we thought we’d have it all figured out by now. We’d be the president of the United States, or a dolphin trainer, or a pop star or at least we’d be a something you could label. By 30 we expected to burst forth from our chrysalis and be handed a briefcase or spatula or jackhammer and go forth and ply our trade. As it turns out, that’s not what happened (or will happen). The way Americans form their identities has changed from what it was in the 1950s, though it would be ridiculous to suggest that today we are any more or less complex as people. Luckily, even if we don’t have a business card that will still be accurate next year, we at least have Facebook pages. We can change who we are with a status update and not get too worried about it.

Searching for the adult in us can have surprising repercussions. Every time three of my friends hold any baby they claim their ovaries are screaming, despite how illogical they find the concept of becoming a mother in their present circumstances. For my friend Lindsay, however, her late twenties brought an altogether different discovery. This July she turned 28 and her biological clock went off, but not for babies. Lindsay announced that she was going to start climbing mountains. Any concerns (or lack there of) about her 10-year reunion were forgotten in a hunger for higher elevations and hiking socks. Lindsay hiked and hiked, and then she decided that 30 was way too young to kiss adolescence goodbye entirely. And with that, Lindsay became her kind of grown up.

Reach columnist Elizabeth Brady at features@dailyuw.com.