Today is the day I turn 22. This is momentous for a solitary reason, that reason being that it is completely and utterly unmomentous. I should explain. For the past 21 years almost every birthday has come with some major change to my lifestyle or were major events. I turn 1, it’s my first number, woo-hoo. I turn 2 and I'm a
toddler, 4 and I can get out of that infant car seat, 5 and I can go to kindergarten. I turn 6 and I can start really learning things in classes. At 7 I can be put on a
bike and left to fend for myself at the ravages of twigs, dirt and
hard uncaring concrete. I turn 10 and I've made it to double digits, the big One-Oh. At 12 I'm about to enter teenager hood, at 13 I am finally a teen and can start being
angst-ridden, having
zits and playing with
Magic cards. At 14 I'm about to start
High School. At 16, I'm 16
w00t, I can get a
license to hurtle
several hundred pounds of metal across the endless expanse of tar adhered concrete, which I eventually get around to doing. At 18 I'm a legal adult, I can vote, I am about to be trundled off to
college. At 19 I'm at the end of what can be called my childhood. I turn 20 and I've hit the big Two-Oh. At 21 I can drink
alcohol, legally.
Year after year my birthday is a moment when my responsibilities and authorizations are expanded. My future is looked toward. I see that I'll soon do something more somewhere or soon in a year or two I'll have even greater responsibilities and powers. I keep climbing up and up and up. The sky is my limit.
And now I'm in the clouds, I've graduated college, I'm searching for a graduate school and working and...oh yeah I'm 22. Oh well. Wait, what?! Where's the fanfare? Where's the, "Wow! He hasn't killed himself by his own stupidity yet?" I won't enter graduate school until after I'm 23 and all I have to look forward to over the next year is working at a job, which I admittedly like, but is going to be mundane and even boring at times. I've not got any great barriers to push or skies to push towards. I've climbed the sheer cliff that was my first 20 years and last year I pulled myself over the edge. And now, here I am, on that well worn mountain path going up the hill with a smooth grade. It's almost a plateau; this year will be pretty damn flat.
Being 22 is interesting because it ends an era of major changes. It caps off my youth and presses me firmly into my young adulthood. I'm no longer forming, I'm me and I'm staying that way for a while.
It's weird.
I realize that all of this sounds a little depressing, and I suppose it is a little sad, but that is the way the cookie turns into a nutritious health bar. I don't mean to seem down about this, but I feel like remarking on an otherwise unremarkable occasion simply because it is my first truly unremarkable birthday. Incredible isn't it? Well, not really all that incredible. But then, that's what's so incredible.
But then who doesn't enjoy a nice recipriversexcluson in the afternoon.