Anna Lockhart is 22 years old. When we talked last week, she was worried about, of all things, honey mustard. It seems that one of Anna's customers at a local deli pitched a fit when a Waldorf salad arrived without the proper dressing.

Anna, who has studied in India and has worked to help women incarcerated in Alabama prisons, was perhaps unaware of how upsetting a honey-mustard setback can be to people who have entrusted their happiness to salad toppings.

"Waitressing is hard," Anna said. "I don't think I'm very good at it."

Anna just graduated from Earlham College, a prestigious liberal arts school in Richmond, Ind. She earned a degree in English and considers herself lucky that she has no college debt.

I've known Anna since she was a teenager attending Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences. She was part of our first Valley Voices teen journalists team at the Times Free Press, and she later worked as a summer intern at the newspaper. She has been a baby sitter for my two boys.

I like Anna. She is soft-spoken, dryly funny and delightfully intelligent. I saw her at a book signing recently, and she told me she was home for the summer. She has plans to relocate to Philadelphia in September with uncertain job plans. She will move in with some college friends and look for work as a waitress.

"I've realized that I need time to sort of float around and not be on a career path," Anna told me in an interview this week. "I don't want to be locked down."

As we talked, I realized that Anna's yearning for an unscripted young adulthood is common in her peer group. It stands in stark contrast to baby boomers in my generation who tend to crave security, for ourselves and our children.

"My friends and I talk about how unlucky we are to graduate into a recession," Anna said. "I'm learning that life costs money. It's tough out there."

Anna got a taste of the school of hard knocks when she returned home to Chattanooga this summer and began to look for work.

"I think every restaurant and every grocery store in Chattanooga has my resumé," she said. She remembers applying at one supermarket, as three other young women simultaneously filled out job applications. "For the first time, I was hungry to get a job," she said.

Eventually, Anna found work at the deli, and she is training to work at a group home for people with disabilities. She is trying to save money for the move to Pennsylvania.

Anna said she is conflicted by her desire for financial independence. At the same time, she is grateful for loving parents who still help with some of her expenses.

"I think my father's dream is for me to be in a good grad school with career plans or to have a good job," Anna said. "He just wants me to be secure."

For her part, Anna said she and her friends value freedom more than stability. It's the new normal for many young adults in their 20s, for whom career-track employment and material gain are secondary to having meaningful life experiences.

"My friends and I all expect to drive (old) cars and wear thrift-store clothes for the next five years," she said. "To us, iPhones and new cars mean you are tied down."

Good, smart people almost always find their way, and being true to your heart is a good guidepost. Yet, we in the boomer nation are holding our breath as our children go forth into an uncertain world.

The kids have a message for us: Breathe.

E-mail Mark Kennedy at timesfreepress.com