Hello everyone. :)
My older brother once told me, kind of in passing, that after your 21st birthday, (excluding your 30th and 40th and 50th and so on), your birthdays don't matter as much. When you turn ten, you're FINALLY A DOUBLE DIGIT! ( I remember that being a bit of a big deal, especially in Sunday School). Sixteen is a big deal because you're...well, 16. When you turn 18, you're finally legal and when you turn 21 you receive...benefits (tongue in cheek lol). Everything after that isn't as pivotal, and I'll admit that anticipating those particular birthdays fills you with a WHOLE LOT OF EXCITEMENT!
How do I feel about turning 22?
I've been thinking about this for the last few days, in great detail I might add.
If anything, I kind of feel...cemented into this "adult" role. I have the power to go out and start a car and not have people wonder whether or not I'm old enough to drive. When I look in the mirror, I feel like I look my age. REALLY. I look like an adult, and I really wish I could describe in great detail what that means. I'm a young adult yes, but I'm more adult than child. While on the point of feeling like an adult, I REALLY DO. I feel like, though 21 years and 360 days is, theoretically, a small amount of time. For some reason, I feel like I've been around for a LONG TIME. Hence the dichotomy. :)
How correct Paul was when he said, "When I was a child, I behaved as a child..."
You know the rest lol.
Implied or not, I will have behavioral responsibilities as well as obligations to society due to this new role. Does that imply I'll have to start wearing high heel shoes (wait, I already do lol) and stop wilding out? Probably. Does this mean I'll have to be a grown up? Hopefully. Does this mean I have to become a stoic and incredibly hard version of my former self? NO.
I look at it this way:
There is a film starring Diane Lane called Under the Tuscan Sun (If you've not seen it, for shame lol) where this woman is kind of on an unofficial quest to find herself after her husband divorces her. After a somewhat impetuous purchase of an Italian villa in Tuscany, she begins to meet some of her new neighbors. She runs into a very glamorous yet carefree woman named Katherine who lives this extravagant lifestyle but lives by a dogma left to her by a photographer she knew:
"Never lose your childlike innocence."
This is what I want.
No matter how I mature or grow or change, I do not want to lose what makes me so eager to take pictures of sunsets or get excited about tea parties or feel simultaneously carefree and fearless when I dance (be that on a wooden floor, brick walkway, or the comfort of my own bedroom...with the door open of course).
I'm not sure if it has taken me 22 years to figure this out, but either way I think birthdays for your 22nd year on earth are as important, if not more important, those for your 21st. I'm looking forward to the next year (if for no other reason, to matriculate) of my life, and I hope to capture the majority of it through stories, poems, and photographs. You know me, so be ready to pose!
Happy Birthday To Me. :)
Keeping the Faith and Keeping it Real,
aM
