My parents came to visit me about a month ago for the first time since I moved to South Texas.

It means I’m grown up.

It had been nearly five months since they had seen me last — the longest I had ever been away from them thanks to the state university just up the road from my hometown.

There were many great memories made, but one sticks out somehow.

We were all in my apartment hanging out when a project my mom was working on required a permanent marker.

She asked if I had one and I said “Yes, ma’am,” dropped what I was doing and went into my bedroom.

I reached under my bed and pulled out the Sperry shoebox that became the depository for all of my writing utensils sometime during the move.

I knew I had a handful of highlighters, pens, pencils and at least half a dozen permanent markers.

I opened the box up and presented it to my mom, who selected a single permanent marker from it. I then closed it up and put it back beneath my bed.

About 15 minutes later my mom was done with the marker and her project, but what she said next baffled me.

“I’m really impressed that you knew right where your permanent markers were,” she said.

I brushed off her compliment by insisting that all of the writing instruments I had were stolen from various banks or events and we laughed it off, but I still couldn’t help but wonder what inspired her to comment on my ability to locate a marker with no fuss.

Today, I figured it out.

I think that after more than a decade of buying me pencils, pens, crayons, colored pencils, highlighters, notebooks, loose-leaf paper, folders, binders and other school supplies that, no matter how hard I tried, were no where to be found the next time back-to-school shopping began, my mother was shocked that I had grown capable of keeping track of things.