As we're driving down the interstate, a Nirvana song comes on the radio.

"The kids entering high school now weren't even born when Kurt Cobain died," Rob says.

"Really?"

"Well, he died in 1994, right?"

"I think it was my freshman year. So, yeah."

"Fourteen years ago. Nearly half your lifetime."

"That's also when I met you, yo."

"Yup, nearly half your lifetime ago."

I think about who we were then. We're returning home from watching Juno, and so it's perhaps easier than usual to muster a memory of our teenage selves. We were a lot like them - good kids involved in band and sports and sharing a real relationship. We weren't part of the snooty popular crowd and had no desire to be. Somehow we even managed to avoid the typical teenage angst. My recollection of our high school years is of open mic night at the coffeehouse, hikes on warm spring days, and a sense of possibility in the air that was almost palpable. We were naive in so many ways, but we also knew ourselves well and recognized something in each other. I remember we used to long for the day when we'd be grown up and sharing a life together - when we could drive home, together, after a movie.

I look at us now, sitting in this car. Rob's hands are clasping the steering wheel and mine are clutching my suede gloves. Where we are now is what once felt so far away. And suddenly I see that we are undeniably adults. All the evidence is there - the marriage, the mortgage, the two-car garage. But when did it happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that I was writing RIP Kurt on my spiral green notebook, right next to the heart encircling Rob's name?

I gaze out the car window at the unending stretch of road. There are tiny travelers far ahead of us, marked by red, and ones behind us who are penlights of white. And I realize it's been happening all along, while we've been moving. I guess I thought there would be a sign or something, a crossing of state lines, a concrete destination that I would recognize upon arrival.

We pass a tractor trailer and as I watch the continuous roll of its wheels I'm surprised to find my eyes welling up with tears. I search myself for sadness, but there is none. I am just profoundly affected by this moment of realization, of the tangible truth in it. There are mileposts along the way, some more memorable than others, but growing up, and being, and living, is happening all along the way, constant and so gradual that it almost goes unnoticed.