'Microwave adulthood' (5/10)

I passed into a weird stage of (pre?)adulthood today.

It was a small milestone: I bought a microwave and a toaster. I've started actively collecting things for when I move out. I suppose there comes a time in every high school senior's Christmas break when they pause for a moment and say,"Shit. Soon I'm outta here." Maybe it's from all the relatives asking about your future or seeing all the university students visiting home for the holidays. But that "Soon I'm outta here" moment happened today and it scared me a bit.

To me, the microwave shows that I'm preparing to be self sufficient. The idea of relative self sufficiency shouldn't scare me as much as it does. I mean, I'm a pretty independent person and I have been for years. But the idea of having to living a sizable distance away from my parents is frightening. I don't think much about the effect my parents have on my life because they're not very notable and I'm at a point where most of my dependency on them has evolved into coexistence. When it comes down to it, though, for the most part they've been extremely good at being a constant and it's coming to a time when that one constant I've always had will be gone.

In around eight months, I'll be creating a new home, away from my family, my close friends, the things I know. I'll live in a new city in a new environment with new people. And I have little idea what that will actually entail. What isn't scary about that? But it's something that I know needs to happen because resisting change would be even worse.

All of this was sparked by a the purchase of chunks of plastic and metal allowing future Julianne to heat and toast food. The future nostalgia is setting in. Is it normal to have strangely defining moments doing something as mediocre as buying a microwave?
Hearts,
-J-